


As certain dark things are to be loved

by Apuzzlingprince



Category: A Nightmare on Elm Street (Movies 1984-1994), Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Friends, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-14 18:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apuzzlingprince/pseuds/Apuzzlingprince
Summary: Freddy snorted. “Well, I better get going,” he said, pushing off the windowsill. “I’m Freddy Krueger, by the way.”“Will you come back?” asked the boy.“Sure,” answered Freddy.Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees befriend each other as children. Just how much difference can one friendship make?





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING/S: The following fic contains explicit references to child abuse. This fic will also (obviously) contain explicit references to children being killed, as well as animal death. If I've forgotten to warn for anything, please let me know in a comment.
> 
> Now, this fic does deviate from the timelines for Jason's and Freddy's respective canons. I've created my own timeline, where Jason doesn't spend as much time wandering the woods and Freddy doesn't spend as much time... doing whatever it was he was doing before the events of the first movie. I've also moved Springwood and Camp Crystal Lake to reside within a few hours of each other for the sake of the fic. Jason is also mute as an adult, but not as a child.
> 
> Some details, such as Mr. Underwood's 'profession', Freddy's trial, and a few aspects of Jason's characterisation, are taken from the novels and TV shows. I only take bits and pieces, so the story is still perfectly readable if you aren't familiar with anything but the movies. 
> 
> To the uh... maybe three people reading this, I hope you enjoy the story!

Freddy generally didn’t enjoy outings with his ‘father’. He was only ever brought along because he was too young and too unpredictable to be kept at home. And consequently, he would often be left to sit quietly in the back of the car or wander around on his lonesome. Mr. Underwood rarely took him anywhere of interest. It was usually a casino, or the shopping mall, or a distant lake Mr. Underwood claimed was the best location for fishing in America. He especially loathed the lake, because unlike the former two places he was regularly dragged to, there was nothing worth pilfering at the lake. At least if he was made to accompany Mr. Underwood for grocery shopping, he could grab a chocolate bar or a toy on his way out.

Most boys would have thrilled at the opportunity to explore a lake, but Freddy, being the alleged son of a hundred maniacs, had never quite fit the description of ‘most boys’. He preferred to remain indoors, to play with the bones of the animals he killed and examine his collection of stolen goods. He was sure Mr. Underwood had seen him playing with the bones, once, which was probably why the man scarcely visited his room anymore, preferring to call him down to the basement for his beltings.

The moment the rusty red Cadillac came to a stop a little ways from Camp Crystal Lake, Freddy slid out of his seat and to the lush green grass. He jogged to the outskirts of the forest before Mr. Underwood could make any sort of demand of him. Occasionally Mr. Underwood liked to sit him down and have him keep an eye on one of his fishing poles, usually for hours at a time, and Freddy didn’t want to give him that opportunity.

“Freddy!” Mr. Underwood bellowed as he disappeared into a throng of trees. “Freddy, you get back here!” It wasn’t long before the crunch of leaves and twigs beneath his feet drowned out the sound of Mr. Underwood's yelling.

He never ventured too far from the lake. He knew Mr. Underwood wasn’t above leaving him there if he didn’t hurry back before sunset. While Freddy was a superb punching bag and had gotten good at luring men into the alleyway in which his father pimped women, he wasn’t so valuable that he would go looking for Freddy if Freddy didn’t return.

Having already explored the circumference of the lake multiple times during past visits, Freddy decided he would spend the day loitering around the forest instead. As long as he kept the lake in view, he would be able to navigate his way back to the car.

He tried climbing a few trees and threw rocks at birds lounging on the branches too high for him to reach, then sat down in the dirt and built himself a miniature shelter out of leaves and branches. When sitting in his makeshift shelter began to bore him, he resumed walking through the forest, glancing to his right periodically to make sure he hadn’t drifted too far.

Only when he came upon a long winding path did he stop walking. It appeared relatively untread. He’d explored the shacks and surrounding trails before, but this path was new, and new was interesting, and he was in dire need of something interesting to keep his adolescent mind occupied.

After a moment’s hesitation, he started to follow the path into the depths of the forest.

He wasn’t sure how long he walked before he finally saw something other than forest on the horizon. At the end of the path stood a towering red-brick house, far more lavish than any house Freddy had ever been exposed to. The disrepair of the place didn’t detract at all from its magnificence.

He trudged up its rickety veranda steps and peered in through a window. The house appeared to be empty. Pressing his face closer to the dusty glass, his gaze caught something he’d missed the first time he’d looked. There was indeed someone inside, sitting in the corner of their living room with a picture book spread open on the floor. They didn’t appear to be reading it. Their attention was on a worn teddy bear in their lap, one they appeared to be attempting to groom with their fingers.

The boys head was very large. In cartoons, that usually meant their brain was too large for their skull. Freddy was curious to find out if that was the case for this boy, so he knocked on the glass to get their attention.

Their head immediately shot up, and they turned to stare at Freddy with an unsettling intensity. It wasn’t until Freddy knocked again, more insistent this time, that the boy stood and lumbered over, examining him through the glass.

“Hey.”

The boy didn’t respond. He glanced over his shoulder, and Freddy suspected, then, that the boy wasn’t as alone as Freddy had first assumed.

“Do you have a big brain?” asked Freddy. “Is that why your head’s so big?”

The boy self-consciously hunched his shoulders. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible. “No.”

“Oh.” That was disappointing. “Why’s it so big, then?”

“’Cus ‘m special,” said the boy. He looked to be younger than Freddy, but he seemed very tall and broad-shouldered despite that.

“Oh,” said Freddy again. “Why’re you special?”

“M’ mommy says,” replied the boy, glancing once again over his shoulder.

Freddy crossed his arms over the windowsill, making himself comfortable. “Do you like frogs?” he asked.

The boy tilted his head at him.

“I like frogs,” continued Freddy. “I find them around the lake. Mr. Underwood won’t let me keep any, though.”

“Yuck,” said the boy. “Frogs are slimy.”

Freddy shrugged. “I don’t mind. They feel interesting. They’re all soft and slimy, but they have bones.”

The boy shivered. “Don’t like frogs.” He lifted his teddy bear into view. “Bears are nice.”

“Bears have big claws-“ Freddy started to say, but the boy mouth pulled into a frown, so he stopped. “They can be soft too, I guess,” he added, shrugging.

The boy smiled. “My bears name is Captain.”

“Captain?”

“He’s a pirate,” the boy added a matter-of-factly.

Freddy snorted. “Well, I better get going,” he said, pushing off the windowsill. “I’m Freddy Krueger, by the way.”

“Will you come back?” asked the boy.

“Sure,” answered Freddy. It was nice to have another kid to talk to. Whenever he tried to befriend the kids in his class, they were driven away by the rumour that he’d been conceived from one hundred maniacs.

He started to jog his way back to the lake. Halfway down the track, he realised he’d forgotten to ask for the boy’s name.

* * *

He discovered in subsequent visits that the boy’s name was Jason, and that he was seven years old to Freddy’s ten and a half. He remembered being a lot more active and talkative than Jason was at seven years old, but he didn’t mind Jason’s reticence. Actually, it was kind of nice to have a friend with such good listening skills. Most kids couldn’t keep their mouth holes shut for more than a few minutes at a time, which Freddy found annoying.

Every so often Freddy had to be ushered away from the window at which they convened when Jason’s mother or babysitter came to check on him.

Jason wasn’t supposed to talk to other kids. Jason’s mother said they were bad, but Jason told Freddy he wasn’t sure about that. At least, not where Freddy was concerned.

Neither of them made any attempts to broach the topic of their home lives. They’d made a silent agreement in that regard. While Freddy did wonder why he scarcely saw Jason step foot outside his house, he wasn’t curious enough to ask.

Generally, they chatted – or Freddy chatted, rather – about animals, and the lake, and toys, and anything else that came to mind. Freddy particularly enjoyed talking about the various toys he’d nicked from stores. His father refused to gift him with any, so he only had a few, but he treasured what he did have. His favourite was the little wooden boat he’d built all by himself out of a building set and a small tube of superglue. He would have brought it to show Jason, but he didn’t want to risk his father finding out about its existence. The last time he’d found one of Freddy’s toys, he’d crushed it beneath his heel and thrown it in the trash.

During one of their more animated conversations, Jason abruptly fell silent. While this wasn’t abnormal for him, Freddy could tell something was amiss.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, squinting past the glass and into Jason’s house. He couldn’t see anyone emerging from the other rooms.

Jason lifted a hand and pointed behind him.

When he turned to look over his shoulder, his heart plummeted. His father was stomping up the pathway with his fishing rod in hand, his features twisted into a snarl of rage. He must not have caught anything. He was always left in a bad mood when that happened.

Freddy smacked his palms on the glass separating him from Jason. “Lemme in,” he hissed, as loud as he dared.

Jason’s bulbous brow furrowed.

“Come on,” Freddy pleaded. “Just for five minutes.” That would be long enough for Mr. Underwood to give up and return to fishing.

Jason gnawed on the edge of a lip with his misshapen teeth, then undid the window latch and pushed the window up just high enough for Freddy to squeeze through. Breathing shallowly, he ducked low, hiding his head against Jason’s bony knees. To his surprise and unease, Jason’s long fingers came to rest on his head, carding through his thick ginger hair while Jason made vague attempts at soothing sounds.

The sensation of fingers stroking over his scalp was very strange. He’d never felt anything quite like it. It was almost frightening in how pleasant it felt, and Freddy had to swallow down the urge to violently evict himself from Jason’s gentle grasp.

Heart in his throat, Freddy coiled his hands into the thick fabric of Jason’s denim overalls and closed his eyes, counting down from a hundred, just like he did while in Mr. Underwood’s basement.

One hundred, ninety nine, ninety eight, ninety seven, ninety six…

Jason’s clumsy fingers tucked a few stands of hair behind his ears.

Ninety two, ninety one, ninety…

He could still hear his father stomping around, now yelling his name.

Eighty six, eighty five, eighty four, eighty three, eighty two…

“The man’s gone,” said Jason, his voice impeccably soft. 

Freddy immediately threw himself upright and reached for the window, pulling himself back out onto the veranda with startling speed. Jason barely had time to react before he was bolting for the forest.

“Fr-“ was all Jason managed to get out before Freddy disappeared into the woods.

He found the thickest throng of trees he could and lowered himself to the tangle of roots, heart beating fast in his chest.

The next time Freddy was able to visit Jason, they didn’t talk about what had happened. Jason did, however, keep the window unlocked and would periodically reach through to touch Freddy’s forearm. Freddy wasn’t sure why he let him. It was weird and uncomfortable; it made him question things about his life that he didn’t particularly want to address, but he didn’t pull away.

* * *

By the time Freddy was thirteen, he’d started to become involved with one of Mr. Underwood’s ‘employees’. The woman restricted their sessions to chaste kisses and groping hands, but that was still more action than anyone else his age was getting. When he tried to regale Jason with stories of his budding libido, the boy frowned and grimaced, so Freddy only ever brought it up the once. He got the impression Jason had yet to receive the ‘birds and bees’ talk from his mother and wouldn’t understand how cool Freddy was for managing to woo a woman at his age, anyway.

In the two and a half years they’d known each other, Jason hadn’t changed much. Gotten a little bigger and lost a few teeth, but that was about it. Freddy, on the other hand, scarcely resembled the boy he’d been at ten years of age. He was no longer meek or quiet or submissive. He sought out fights at school and he rebelled against his adoptive father in ways he never would have dared at a younger age. Though his back was riddled with scars from his behaviour, and his smart often made the subject of bullying, he’d been beaten often enough that physical abuse was useless as a deterrent.

For Jason, though, he remained as close to how he had been at ten years old as possible. He didn’t think Jason would like the changes he exhibited in front of everyone else. Jason was much too young, too naïve, too innocent. Sometimes he wondered if the boy even understood the concept of change.

With how little Jason seemed ventured outside, it was no wonder he was the way he was. But Freddy didn’t mind. There was so little innocence in his own life that it was intriguing to see it in someone else’s. Part of him wanted to see it corrupted, but he valued Jason’s friendship enough not to try.

He suspected Jason’s mom had spotted him playing with Jason over the years, but if she ever did, she never said anything, nor tried to separate them. Generally it was best to spend time with Jason when his mother was busy at the camp kitchens, as Jason’s usual babysitter paid him little mind.

One on of the rare occasions Jason’s mother wasn’t present, Freddy showed Jason a BB gun he’d bought from the local toy store. It was his favourite toy, nowadays. Mr. Underwood had yet to take it from him, despite knowing of its existence, and he suspected that had something to do with the thought of Freddy shooting him with it. While the little metal pellets wouldn’t cause any serious nor permanent damage, they would most definitely hurt like a bitch.

Jason didn’t have any idea what it was when he presented it to him. He reached through the window to touch its shaft, running his pale fingers over its barrel.

“It’s pretty cool, huh,” said Freddy, grinning toothily. He had a butterfly knife, too, but he wouldn’t show Jason that. He didn’t want to scare him.

“What’s it do?” asked Jason, withdrawing his fingers.

“It’s a BB gun. I can shoot stuff with it.”

Jason tilted his head, like he didn’t quite understand what ‘shooting stuff’ meant. And maybe he didn’t. Freddy suspected he’d never so much as heard the word ‘shoot’ before.

“D’you want me to show you?” he asked

“Yeah,” said Jason, shuffling closer to the window.

Freddy drew a chocolate bar out of his jacket pocket and carefully balanced it on the veranda railing. A little precarious, but he didn’t need it to stay upright for long. He trained his BB gun on the bar and pressed down on the trigger, sending it flying over the sparse shrubbery surrounding the house, across the front lawn, and into a bush. Behind him, Jason yelped.    

“Hide, hide,” he babbled, and it was only then that Freddy realized the bang would have been loud enough to draw the attention of the babysitter.

Freddy leapt over the railing and into a small cluster of bushes just before a plump, blonde-haired woman threw open the front door and peered out. She had a girly mag clutched in her hand and a worried look upon her face. Her hazel eyes scanned the surrounding area for anything amiss, but she didn’t seem to notice the chocolate bar poking out of a nearby bush.

“What was that?” Freddy heard her ask.

Jason’s only response was to grunt.

“You didn’t break something, did you, Jason? Your mom won’t be happy if you did.”

Another grunt.

“Alright, whatever. Keep out of trouble.”

After slamming the door shut, the woman retreated back into the room she’d come from, presumably to continue reading her magazine. Freddy emerged from his hiding place the moment her footsteps were no longer auditable. Hopping back over the railing, he knelt in his usual place with the BB gun in his lap.

Jason regarded him with a furrowed brow. Evidently he hadn’t enjoyed Freddy’s display with the BB gun. Freddy couldn’t blame him, considering they’d almost been caught as a result.

“Didn’t mean to scare ya,” said Freddy. His apologetic tone wasn’t very convincing, but it seemed to be enough for Jason, whose forehead smoothed over at his attempt at contrition.

“It’s loud,” mumbled Jason.

“So, you don’t like it?”

Jason shook his head.

Freddy shrugged. “I’ll bring something else next time, like my boat. It’s getting a little old now, though.” Another year or two and he’d probably throw it away. He was getting too old for such toys, anyway. Teenagers weren’t supposed to play with little wooden boats.

“Actually,” he started, struck with an idea. “You can have my boat, if you want.”

Jason’s one good eye widened. “Really?”

“Yeah. I haven’t done anything with it in ages.” He shrugged again. “Better you have it, or it’ll end up in the trash.”

Though it was a very small gesture, Jason appeared incredibly touched. His eyes were wide and shiny and Freddy hoped it wasn’t with tears. He didn’t much mind tears from people he disliked, but from Jason? He wasn’t so sure how he’d react, and he didn’t particularly want to find out.

“So, do you want the boat or not?” he asked.

Jason nodded his head vigorously. With how hard he did it, it was a wonder his eyes didn’t pop out of his skull.

Snorting, Freddy rose to his feet with his BB gun in hand. “I’ll make sure to bring it next time.”

“Wait.” Jason’s hands poked through the window. He felt those long fingers coil around his pant legs and then a gentle tug. For a ten year old, Jason was startlingly strong. Any effort he made to resist Jason tugging him closer was futile, and he was pulled into an awkward hug against the glass before he could flee. Only after a firm squeeze did Jason allow him to dislodge himself.

“I should go,” said Freddy, his voice soft and immensely awkward. He left without saying goodbye.

* * *

By complete coincidence, it wasn’t long after Jason’s eleventh birthday that Freddy gifted him the boat. He told Freddy as much as he gingerly set the boat in his lap, grinning wider than Freddy had ever seen him grin. It seemed odd that someone should find such glee in being gifted an old, chipped boat that had been made by a prepubescent child, but he supposed, secluded to his house as he was, Jason had to find pleasure in the simple things.

In subsequent visits, Jason gave him little things in return. Things to eat, usually. His mother seemed to have a surplus of the strawberry hard candies usually carried by grandmas.

As time went on, and Mr. Underwood started to lose interest in fishing, their trips to the lake dwindled in number. Eventually he was seeing Jason once a month, if that.

And then one day, he didn’t see Jason at all. His house was empty, lights off and interior stagnant. He called Jason’s name a few times, just to make sure he wasn’t somewhere else within the house, and received no answer.

When he came back the following month, Jason still wasn’t there. The windowsill at which they had so often convened had started to gather dust.

He visited three more times before it sunk in that Jason was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.

So Freddy resumed wandering the embankment as he had as a child. He found it odd, how quiet the place was now. The local camp seemed to have fallen into disuse.

During one wandering, he found the small, wooden boat he’d given Jason among the slurry of plant life attached to the pier legs. He wrangled it free and turned it over in his hands, wiping it clean with a sleeve as best he could. The wood was so soggy and rotten, now, that Freddy suspected it would come apart were he to apply too much pressure.

The boat wasn’t going to be seaworthy again even with extensive care. Nevertheless, Freddy set it down on Jason’s porch before he hopped back into the car to leave.

He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t just broken it. It wasn’t as though Jason would return one day just to retrieve a rotten piece of wood.  


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting into adulthood! Since this is my first foray into writing for Jason and Freddy, some feedback would be great!

Jason had a very fuzzy, indistinct recollection of the years prior to witnessing his mother’s decapitation. He remembered foraging for food, killing animals, and stealing clothes, and he remembered finding a small, debilitated shack in which to sleep. Sometimes the monotony had been broken up by voices and faces, but he couldn’t recall any of those with great detail.

For a while he’d been little more than a series of animalistic instincts, devoid of any thought or feeling that wasn’t necessary for survival. His near drowning had evicted almost everything that had distinguished him from an animal from his mind. He hadn’t even remembered his own name until seeing his mother again had rejuvenated something within him.

What time he hadn’t spent hunting for food, he’d spent building his shack into living space that fulfilled all his basic needs. He had a makeshift bed, a toilet, containers for food, and numerous bottles full of fresh water. He’d built a back room for his mother shortly after witnessing her death, and he kept her head propped up on a pedestal of his own design. Next to her was the decaying toy boat he had received as a child.

The boy that had given it to him didn’t visit anymore. It was just him and his mother, now.

She spoke to him often. She told him to enact revenge upon the harlot that had murdered her. In an effort to oblige, he spent his every waking moment roaming the camp in search of his mother’s killer, and it was only after several weeks of meandering among the trees that Jason had the good luck to come upon her in her car. He memorized every fine detail of the vehicle and started stalking her back into town. 

Her name was Alice. He’d heard it spoken by the locals. He’d heard Freddy’s name on their lips, too, though he had yet to see him around the camp despite that. His name was usually accompanied by the words ‘at large’.

When he finally identified Alice’s home by the car out front, he stole into her apartment and killed her with an ice pick. He pushed it straight through her temple and muddled up the brain matter inside her skull. It left her body well preserved, a perfect tribute to his dear dead mother. She would be proud of him.

He lifted the steaming kettle off the stove so the sound wouldn’t alert the other occupants of the apartment complex, then gingerly placed his mother’s head back into her sack. Alice was thrown over a shoulder. A steady rivulet of blood dripped down the side of her face and soaked into his overalls.

He carted them both across the room and into the hallway, peering around to make sure it was vacant before jogging for the stairs. He didn’t get far before the sound of a man’s voice brought him to an abrupt halt.

Someone had uttered Freddy’s name. “Freddy Krueger,” he’d said, and followed it with, “Has finally been apprehended.”

The source was either a radio or a television; Jason couldn’t say, though he recognized the faint buzz of electricity from his childhood. His mother had let him listen to the radio on occasion. Before falling into the lake, he’d always liked the ones about a pirate named Silver.

He approached the source of the sound. The context behind Freddy being on television eluded him, but he was always sure about two things: Freddy was still alive, and Freddy lived far beyond the camp.

Out of fear of repercussions, he had never introduced Freddy to his mother as a child. Now that he was an adult, he realized that had been a mistake. His mother had always lamented the solitude he’d suffered through as a boy. She hadn’t liked that he couldn’t play with the other kids. She’d kept him away from them so he wouldn’t have to face their bullying, and she’d been right to do so, as it was their bullying that had ultimately led to Jason falling into the lake, but it had still made her terribly sad to know Jason didn’t have any friends.

Freddy wasn’t like those children. He was kind, and generous, and he never called Jason names or poked and prodded at his deformities. His mother would have liked him.

His mother _would_ like him.

He heard her whisper in his ear. “Go on, Jason. Go on,” she said. There was none of her usual malice, no demands for blood. Her voice was instead soft and cloying. “Go on,” she persisted. “Find him. Mommy wants to meet your friend.”

He carefully broke the lock on the apartment door and entered to gather more information. The slumbering man on the couch wasn’t roused by his presence, presumably because he had a bottle of whiskey in hand, so he left him be while the television fed him information on Freddy’s whereabouts.

Freddy was awaiting his trial in Springwood, said the television. Jason needed to get to Springwood.

He committed the name to memory, as well as Freddy’s new, adult face. He looked almost as old as Jason’s mother now, but he recognized the ginger hair and the green eyes. That didn’t seem to be a common combination among people, though Jason had limited exposure to draw from.

When he saw the letters for ‘Springwood’ appear on the screen, he memorized those too. While he struggled to read, and always had, he was very good at remembering shapes.

* * *

It seemed a little excessive to shackle his wrists, ankles, _and_ force him into a glass box for the duration of his trial. Since being apprehended, Freddy had been the model inmate; he’d made no attempts to harm anyone and remained calm and approachable throughout his interrogation. The officers who’d brought him in hadn’t appreciated his smart mouth, but that was hardly reason enough to slough him in all forms of restraint available.

Though the discomfort was making him agitated, prompting him to tear at his hat in a demonstration of frustration, he contented himself with the thought that they had restrained him so thoroughly out of fear. The idea that they were afraid of him, even without his blades, was a pleasant one. And considering what defence his lawyer had, that would soon be amplified.

He didn’t particularly like being the centre of attention; it was too reminiscent of the bullying he’d been subjected to in his youth, so he kept his gaze straight ahead and didn’t let it wander.

The trial took perhaps twenty minutes in total. Much of it was spent displaying damning evidence; pictures of children’s clothing and what little was left of their corpses. He’d liked to keep mementos of his victims and he was rather regretting doing so now, if only because it caused the trail to drag on longer than Freddy thought necessary. After pursing him for several long, bloody years, they seemed to be relishing the opportunity to put his sins on display.

Many of the children had grown since some of his initial killings, some of them eight and nine, others ten and eleven. No one beyond the age of an adolescent. He was content with the knowledge he’d made their formative years absolute hell. None of them had been allowed into the court room, which was a shame.

His defence took all of a minute. The moment the judge was informed the evidence had been obtained illegally, she had no choice but to adjourn the case. Chaos broke out in the court room; parents were standing and yelling, a woman had begun to sob, and the cameras had come out in droves. All the while, Freddy was silent and impassive, standing by the exit to the box to be let out.

He ignored the flashing cameras and the microphones thrust under his chin. Setting his fedora upon his head, he walked calmly out to liberation.

Within a few days, no one could profess to know where Freddy Krueger was hiding, and nor could they legally pursue him at this point. He resolved to stay in his boiler room until the town had settled enough for him to resume his activities. This time, he knew he wouldn’t get away with it without being caught, but he didn’t care; devastating the last of his former classmate’s families would be well worth it. They didn’t deserve to have the cosy, white picket fence life Freddy himself had been deprived of, and he would rip it out of their hands himself.

He kept his trips into town to a minimum, surviving on what little food he’d been able to scavenge from his house before being chased by news reporters back to his hovel. With little else to do, he spent much of his time reading newspapers and listening to the radio, gathering information of his targets. He busied himself by concocting new plans.

To escape the perpetually humid atmosphere that pervaded the boiler room, he risked the accessional walk around town, always at the dead of night and never too close to any place he had been before. Sometimes he had an odd feeling, like someone was following him, but when he turned around to check, no one would be there. After several instances of this, Freddy chalked it up to paranoia; it was only natural. He knew there were quite a few people pursuing him.

Unfortunately, those who were pursuing him did eventually find him. It took them a very long time indeed, but they did.

The only warning he had before being ambushed was a great crash as a flaming gas canister came flying into his boiler room. The floor lit up the moment the flames touched his grimy floor, spread further by the steady spill of the gasoline. He went flying out of his chair, disorientated and bewildered, heat licking at his legs as he stumbled for safety. A flaming bottle came flying in shortly thereafter, and then another. The flames stretched across the room in great, leaping waves and pushed Freddy away from salvation.

The heat seeped into his mouth, his throat, his lungs. He could feel it burning in his guts. He tried to evade the flames by yanking off his smoking coat, but it was a futile effort. The flames were relentless, clawing up his legs, searing fabric to skin.

Inexplicably, he heard voices. Soft, enticing hissing voices in his ear. The flames scorched at his skin and the voices grew in volume, and something cool and smooth, like bone, slid across his back and over his thighs.

The serpentine voice whispered against the shell of his ear, saying his name, telling him it knew what he wanted, oh, it _knew_ what he wanted. In his agony he didn’t care that the idea of being spoken to by an invisible entity was completely ludicrous. He was in pain, terrified, desperate, and the answer tore out of him against his volition.

“I want it all!”

A different voice followed, just as serpentine, but stronger.

Moments away from death, and he was losing his fucking mind.

His body wracked with shudders as his chest abruptly cooled. His heart was failing, he thought. He was dying. He was going to die.

_And you shall be forever-_

The suddenness with which the serpentine voices receded might have surprised him were he currently not on fire. As it was, there was simply too much pain for him to focus on anything else. He felt himself being heaved into someone’s arms and out of the flames, still bellowing at the top of his lungs, screaming and screaming while his vision trembled and darkened and his systems started to fail.

The last thing he saw, as he looked up at his saviour, was a single brown eye.

* * *

The first thing he became conscious of was pain. A fiery, pulsing pain that crawled up his torso and prickled at his jaw. He whimpered mindlessly, curling away from the location of the pain as thought he would be able to crawl out of his own skin if he tried hard enough. God, it was awful; he’d never felt anything quite like it. Even all the whippings he’d endured as a boy were _nothing_ compared to this.

He didn’t think to open his eyes until he heard lumbering footsteps. Though the room was dark and his eyes were glassy from the pain, he made out the broad outline of a man. Freddy had no recollection of ever meeting this person; were they an enemy? An enraged parent intending to extend his death? An admirer, perhaps? Whatever they were, he desperately hoped they had painkillers.

The hulking beast of a man dropped to his knees before him. It was only then that Freddy realised he was lying in a bed, dressed only in his underwear. His clothes were in a pile on the floor.

The man didn’t speak, merely stared while he withered. The only part of his face visible was an eye, the rest obscured by a ridiculous sack of some sort. Freddy groaned in frustration. “Do something,” he demanded, his voice much less authoritative than he would have liked. It had been rendered hoarse from the flames. “If you’re going to kill me, _do it_!” At this point, he would have welcomed death.

The man very slowly tilted his head, then stood and left the room. He returned a short while later with a soaking wet towel. Though Freddy didn’t particularly want to be smothered in a soaking wet towel, he didn’t stop the man from carefully draping it over his aching body. It did soothe his burns a little.

The man resumed kneeling by the bed.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” breathed Freddy, fisting his hands around the bedsheets in an effort to regain control over his body. He was still withering and his eyes were wide and wet. He tried not to think about how pathetic he must look.

“I need painkillers,” he said to the man. “Just- jesus- god, give me fucking painkillers! Give me painkillers!” His voice rose and cracked and the man immediately leapt to his feet. He left the room once again.

This time, when he returned, he brought what appeared to be the entire contents of a bathroom cabinet with him. This guy must have been some kind of retard not to know what ‘painkiller’ meant.

Returning to the spot by the bed, Sack Head (Freddy couldn’t think up anything wittier in his current state) dumped a wide variety of medicines onto the mattress and looked at Freddy expectantly. Freddy found it exceedingly difficult to read while in so much pain, but he eventually located a packet of Vicodin that had, according to the label, been prescribed after serious dental treatment, and managed to convince himself to only swallow two so he would have some left for later.

The name on the labels said ‘Voorhees’. Pamela Voorhees on a few, Jason Voorhees on others. Either they were the former owners of the house, or Sack Head here was called Jason (or Pamela, he supposed, but that would be a very unfortunate name for a man to have).

Just twenty minutes, Freddy told himself. Twenty minutes, then the pain would be gone. These were bound to be the longest twenty minutes of his life.

The towel started to warm while he waited. When he pushed it to the floor, Sack Head retrieved it and put it on a nearby chair. He pushed a few of the medicine packets to the floor to see if Sack Head would do the same thing, and he did.

The seconds dragged by. He counted them down in his head, or at least tried to. He only managed to get to twenty two before the hot throb overwhelmed his ability to think. He whimpered and withered some more, pressing his face into a musty pillow, grappling at the bedsheets, but none of these things helped ease his pain. It was only when the Vicodin finally started to take effect that he regained some degree of normal function.

Gradually, his movements began to slow, his twisting fingers unfurling from around his anchor. He took deep steadying breaths and rolled onto his side, eyelids drooping from the sedative quality of the opioid. It was hitting him harder than he had expected. Granted, it had been a very long time since he’d taken any form of drug, even for something as simple as a headache. Freddy was generally very good at tolerating pain.

He didn’t think to protest when Sack Head reached over and stroked his meaty fingers through his coarse ginger hair.

“Are you Jason?” he asked, his voice soft and hoarse. The stroking hand withdrew. Freddy couldn’t begin to guess what _that_ was supposed to mean. “Well? Yes or no?”

Sack Head didn’t provide an answer, verbal or otherwise. At this point, Freddy was beginning to think he was mute and lacking in comprehension skills. However, after a brief pause, Sack Head once again left the room. Freddy hoped it was to get a black board or something so they could have an actual conversation.

He did not return with a blackboard. Instead, he deposited something disgusting and smelly onto the bed and stared a Freddy like a dog awaiting a treat. Freddy wrinkled his nose in dismay. He hoped he hadn’t just been bought dried shit or something.

With clumsy hands, he reached down to pick up what Sack Head wished to show him.  It took him a moment to identify the item as a little wooden boat.

“Why in the word-“ Something clicked.

Jason. A toy boat.

He looked up at Jason, jaw slackening in shock.

The memory of Jason was very, very faint, but it was there. Just barely. As the only friend he’d ever had, Jason would have been difficult to forget entirely.

“How did you find me?“ He paused, realization dawning. “Were you _following_ me? Was that _you_?”

By now, Freddy had come to expect silence from Jason, so he wasn’t surprised when Jason merely stared at him.

“You were, weren’t you. You were following me…” What Jason’s motivations were for bringing him here, he couldn’t quite discern. He’d been helpful thus far, but that didn’t completely rule out malicious intent.

As he considered Jason’s intentions, he became aware of just how vulnerable he was, rendered weak by his injuries and docile by the medication. If he tried to run, it wasn’t likely he would get far before collapsing, and there was certainly no chance of him besting Jason in a physical fight. He looked to be roughly the size of a small mountain.

Jason’s towering visage made him nervous. He was almost inclined to hate the man on principle.

“You didn’t bring me here to do something to me, did you?” There was some warning behind his voice, that he would attack if need be. Not that it would do him much good.

Jason reached for him. He flinched back, jaw clenched and hand fisted, like a cobra preparing to strike, but all Jason did was resume stroking his fingers through his hair and smoothing it back over his scalp.

He stared up at Jason, bewildered, and waited for something else to happen. Jason continued stroking.

“Well, that’s that, then.” He licked his lips and swallowed, placing the little toy boat aside. He didn’t want to break it by accident by holding it too firmly. He didn’t know how Jason would respond to something like that. “Ain’t got a lot happening in that noggin of yours, huh, big guy?”

Jason didn’t respond beyond tucking a few strands of hair behind his ear. The intense way he was staring at Freddy was a little unsettling. Not once had Freddy seen him blink.

“You aren’t going to do anything to me while I sleep, are ya?”

Finally, Jason responded in a way he could decipher: he very slowly shook his head, withdrawing his hand as emphasis.

Freddy still didn’t trust Jason to keep his hands to himself; he wasn’t even sure Jason fully understood what he was trying to say, but he decided there wasn’t a great deal he could do about it in his current position and he might as well get some sleep. If Jason decided to asphyxiate him or stab him while he slumbered, then, well… he supposed death was somewhat preferable to being in horrible pain for the next several months.

He closed his eyes and faintly, he could hear Jason taking wheezing breaths. He didn’t sound to have very healthy lungs. Perhaps that was part of his deformity.

The combination of drugs and exhaustion eventually lulled Freddy to sleep, and he had the most unusual of dreams. Dreams of cool, slippery being dragging over his skin and hissing whispers in his ears. Sweet nothings about power and revenge. They were the most vivid dreams he’d ever had.

* * *

The pain had started to return by the time he awoke. He popped another Vicodin tablet and rose to his elbows on the musty duvet, peering blearily around the room. He would never admit to jumping slightly when he saw Jason’s hulking form standing in the doorway.

“Jesus Christ.” He wiped the gunk out of his eyes with a thumb and sighed. “How long’ve you been there?”

Jason stepped through and presented him with a potato sack. Freddy could clearly see it had something other than potatoes inside, which was a shame, because Freddy was desperately hungry now and would have eaten just about anything Jason handed him.

“You don’t happen to have a roast chicken in there or something, do you?”

Jason did that ridiculous thing where he merely tilted his head instead of replying. Freddy was starting to find it annoying.

“I’ll take that as a no.” With great effort, he managed to throw his legs over the side of the bed and push himself upright. He could really use something to wash away the taste of Vicodin with. There was only so many times he was willing to take a tablet dry. He didn’t particularly enjoy the dry drag of it down his esophagus.

Jason came to stand at the side of the bed. Giving the sack a wary glance, Freddy shifted to the side to enable Jason to sit. Jason didn’t. Instead, he wrenched open the opening of the sack and reached inside, pulling out – god. Freddy gagged as the putrid scent of rotten flesh invaded his nostrils. He’d certainly smelt decomposition before, but nothing quite this far along. There was barely any skin and muscle left on the face Jason was attempting to push into his line of sight.

Swearing under his breath, he tried to stand to put distance between himself and the withered head and didn’t manage to take a single step before his knees buckled, sending him falling back to the mattress with a loud thump. Jason reached down and pulled him upright by his uninjured arm. The withered head came precariously close to touching his naked skin and he withdrew in disgust, snarling up at Jason.

“You’ve a shit bedside manner, you know that? Get that away from me!”

The narrowing of Jason’s eye was just barely perceptible behind his sack. With not a lick of grace, he dropped to the bed beside Freddy and sat the severed head in his lap. Freddy was understandably a little uncomfortable with having a hulking beast of a man and a severed head less than a foot from him while he was almost naked. He would have put on his clothes, but he likely wouldn’t manage to get them on without considerable effort, and he didn’t particularly want to be seen struggling in front of another person. It was bad enough he’d spent his initial interaction with Jason whimpering and moaning.

Jason reached behind Freddy and gently guided him into looking down at the decapitated head. It was then that Freddy realized the head belonged to Jason mother. While he couldn’t recall her face with any clarity, he could most certainly remember her curly blond hair.

Freddy hoped Jason hadn’t murdered his own mother and kept the head as a trophy. That would say more about Jason’s mental state than Freddy was comfortable with while unable to defend himself. Under different circumstances, he probably would have found that relatable.

“She’s certainly not looking her best these days,” he said wryly, twisting out from Jason’s grip. The man made no effort to stop him. “Might want to soak her head in water for a few hours. Get some life into that skin.” He cleared his throat. “Speaking of water, I could really use a glass.”

Before standing, Jason gingerly placed his mother’s head upon the bedside table.

“And some food,” Freddy added to Jason’s retreating back.

Now alone with the head, Freddy had to persuade himself not to push it to the floor. He suspected Jason wouldn’t much like that, and he had no desire to provoke the man into doing to him what he had presumably done to his mother. He settled for pushing himself to the opposite end of the mattress and muffling the scent of decayed flesh with a palm.

While waiting for Jason to return, he considered the small pile of clothes by the bed. His sweater looked reasonably salvageable, but the pants weren’t going to cover more than one thigh in their current state. He would need to find himself some new pants when his injuries had healed enough for him to actually _want_ to wear pants.

There were no clocks in the room, so no means with which to tell them time. He glanced at the window. It was dark outside. He couldn’t remember if it had been dark outside the first time he’d awoken.

By the time light started to peek into the night sky, Freddy was considering dragging himself out of the room to investigate where Jason had gone. Fortunately, Jason returned before he could go through with that ill-advised plan.

He pressed a glass of water into Freddy’s left hand and a plate of food into the right. He was being served baked beans, bread, and a few vegetables that Jason hadn’t had the forethought to cut into chewable portions. The food appeared to be fresh. Freddy couldn’t begin to guess where he’d gotten it from.

He swallowed half the glass of water in one gulp, then proceeded to take a bite out of a tomato. Jason hadn’t provided him with any cutlery, so he would have to use his fingers. It was going to be a pain in the ass to eat the beans without a spoon.

After nearly choking on a mouthful of bread, Freddy forced himself to eat slower. “So,” he began conversationally, eyeing Jason. “What’s with the head, Jason? Did mommy give you one too many time outs?”

The way Jason’s shoulders stiffened and his fingers curled suggested he didn’t much like Freddy’s question.

“That’s a no, I take it.” He took another bite out of the tomato, juices sliding messily down his chin. “You gonna corroborate? Nod your head a little?” He nodded his own head in demonstration. “Come on, Sack Head. Gimme something to work with.”

To his great surprise, Jason responded by nodding his own head. Hopefully not a case of monkey see, monkey do, but if Jason was intelligent enough to understand his requests for food and water, he was likely intelligent enough to understand everything else Freddy was saying. Which, granted, wouldn’t require a great deal of intelligence.

He only managed to eat half of what was on his plate before he was too full to continue. Jason took the plate from him and placed it next to his mother’s head, presumably so he would have something to eat the next time he felt peckish. Freddy, however, would not be eating anything that had been in such close proximity to rotten flesh. He wasn’t the most hygienic or health-conscious of men, but he still had standards.

Full and content, all Freddy wanted to do now was relax. He lay back down in bed, pulling the quilt over what parts of his body weren’t covered in burns. He kept the packet of Vicodin close at hand for when the pain inevitably returned.

Jason stood over him and watched him for an indeterminable length of time. He was a little unsettled by that, but he was too relaxed to say as much. After a while, Jason retrieved his mother’s head from the bedside table and left the room.

* * *

The following weeks passed uneventfully, for the most part. There was little Freddy could do while his body was still healing from his near-death experience, and consequently he spent most of his days in bed with a glass of water and a packet of Vicodin. The most interesting thing to have happened in the past month was Jason going out to find him more Vicodin and returning with half a pharmacy and a great deal of blood on his jean overalls, and that wasn’t exactly surprising considering the great lummox was comfortable enough with death to wander around the house with his mother’s head cradled in his hands.

They’d fallen into something of a routine. He would wake up, take Vicodin, and talk at Jason for a few hours, then Jason would leave and bring him a glass of water and a plate of food. He would eat, talk some more, pop a few pills, take a nap, and wake up in time for more food. A very basic, boring life that Freddy didn’t find palatable, but even after a good month, his injuries _still_ hurt, and he couldn’t make it far before the desire to sit down overwhelmed him.

The worst part of being incapacitated wasn’t the boredom, however; it was his complete inability to do anything for himself. The first time he’d needed to piss, he’d attempted and failed to drag himself to the bathroom and Jason had come upon him sprawled out in the hallway. To his great embarrassment, Jason had picked him up and carried him the rest of the way to the bathroom, dropping him unceremoniously onto the toilet. The man had stared unabashedly while he sat there. He hadn’t been able to relieve himself until he’d convinced Jason to turn around.

On the positive side of things, his legs were finally healed enough for him to start wearing pants. Not his old pants; those were ruined, but a fresh pair of pants Jason had procured during one of his trips out.

He had some odd dreams, too. Incredibly vivid dreams that regularly took place in his boiler room. Sometimes when he woke up, he could almost feel the heat on his skin, the prickle of pain of searing flesh. The scent of hot metal lingered in his nostrils.

But they were just dreams. 


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: There is explicit sexual content in this chapter!

Freddy had gone long periods without bathing before. As a young man living from shelter to shelter, or gutter to gutter, his access to bathing utilities had been limited. He’d often had to resort to towelling down in the nearest public bathroom to prepare himself for job interviews or simply to feel like a human being. This had all changed when he’d finally found steady work at a local chemical plant. He’d bought himself an apartment the moment he’d had enough funds to do so and started showering every night after work. He got used to it, to being clean and comfortable in his own skin.

Right now, however, he was not clean or comfortable, and the still-healing, leathery burns made him feel as though he wasn’t even in his own skin. He had washed himself with a few of the wet towels Jason liked to hand him, but a wet towel was a poor substitute for an actual bath or shower.

The day he started to develop a concerning itch around his balls, he decided he’d had enough of wallowing in his own filth. While Jason was out on an errand, Freddy hobbled his way down the stairs and into the bathroom to run a lukewarm bath. The tub hadn’t been used in some time, so he gave its dusty ceramic surface a quick wash-down with a cloth before sliding inside.

Freddy made sure not to look at the surrounding mirrors as he eased into the water. He already knew his scars reached his face, clawing like lightening up his jaw, vivid and pink. He didn’t like the reminder of what those bastards back at Springwood had subjected him to. When he was well enough, he would return to them, and they would pay in spades for what they had done.

He found himself smiling as he concocted plans of revenge. It would be difficult to get all the children before someone figured out something was wrong, but he wouldn’t let that deter him. Even if it took him years to achieve, he would get every single one of his targets.

The cool water soothed his burns. He traced them with the tips of his fingers while he languished, feeling every bump and crevice and marvelling at the foreignness of the texture. The scar tissue ran up his right leg, dragged across his thigh, over a hip, and extended wildly at his torso. He didn’t know what his back looked like. Probably just as mangled.

Much of the nerves must have been burned away, because he could feel little in the dead tissue. Fortunately, the fire had managed to evade his dick, so he could still masturbate every so often to take the edge off the pain. Which didn’t sound like a half bad way to spend the duration of his bath. No better place to masturbate than in the tub, right? There would be no evidence left behind.

With his undamaged hand, Freddy grabbed his cock by the base and gave it a few slow strokes. Frankly he found murder to be more stimulating, but he was in no position to indulge in that particular vice. Masturbation was more traditional, anyway, and he got off irregularly enough that he could generally climax a few times before he ran out of steam. With brief rests in between, of course.

His cock turned hard and warm in his hand. Stroking a thumb over a protruding vein, he sighed, sinking deeper into the tepid water. He summoned to mind the image of a soft expanse of a navel marked by his glove, vibrant red on porcelain white. He thought about the red expanding and sliding over the sharp jut of hips, and about the loud, obscene noises people made during the throes of death. Slowly, his imagined victim took the form of Marge Thompson.

God, he’d love to rid the world of that bitch. A reasonably pretty face, but she had too smart a mouth on her and a penchant for being a thorn in Freddy’s side. Even before his crimes had been uncovered, they hadn’t liked each other very much. She probably remembered him as that small, awkward kid in class that everyone – including herself – had labelled as the ‘child of a hundred maniacs’, destined for nothing but evil.

Well, she hadn’t been wrong about that.

A warmth started to spread throughout his body. His thighs tensed. A couple more strokes, and he would be hurtling toward completion.

He heard a sharp exhale.

Snapping his head to the side, Freddy’s eyes flew open to the sight of Jason standing at the side of the tub, looking down at him. His arousal immediately flagged. He snapped his hand away from his cock.

He was by no means shy, but he wasn’t an exhibitionist, either.

“For fucks sake, chief.” He pulled his knees towards his chest to preserve some dignity. “Give a guy some warning next time. What’ya want?”

Jason silently dropped to his hunches and reached into the water. Freddy started to bat his hand away with a snarl, but stopped when he noticed the wash cloth clutched within it. He cast Jason a perplexed look, who merely gave the cloth a squeeze and proceeded to apply it to Freddy’s back.

It was an oddly… affectionate gesture. The sort of thing Jason and his mother would have done regularly. In fact, remembering the type of woman Mrs. Voorhees had been, she’d probably attended all his baths, or at least had the babysitter present to make sure Jason didn’t harm himself. He’d almost feel sorry for the guy were he inclined toward that sort of sentiment.

He let Jason wash his back without complaint, mostly because it didn’t feel that bad. Jason’s strokes were very gentle and considerate. People didn’t generally touch him like this. Even his wife hadn’t. They’d had a decidedly cold relationship.

He rested his chin on his knees, folding his arms around his legs while Jason scrubbed away the accumulated muck. Jason’s hand descended lower, cloth dragging over the prominent bobs of his spine.

“Think you could get me a beer after this?” he asked, quirking a lip at Jason. The man was silent, as per usual. “Maybe a whiskey? I’m guessin’ your mommy wasn’t much of a drinker, though. I’d even settle for wine, so long as it’s red.”

Offering no reply, neither verbal nor physical, Jason drew the cloth back and wrung it out, then hung it over the edge of the tub. He reached for a very old, worn bottle of shampoo. The liquid inside looked a little overly gunky and green. Freddy really didn’t want to find out if shampoo had an expiration date.

“That’s enough,” said Freddy, pushing away the shampoo-wielding hand when it reached for him. Jason made a grunting sound in response – the most sound Freddy had heard out of him in over a month. In his shock, he momentarily forgot he was resisting Jason’s efforts to wash his hair and remained still long enough for Jason to pour a dollop of shampoo onto his scalp.

He started to say something, to ask Jason why he didn’t talk if his vocal chords were still functional, and was silenced when Jason began to rub the shampoo into his hair with his fingers. Foam quickly began to form. He squeezed his eyes shut to prevent it from slopping into his eyes and groped blindly for the wash cloth to wipe his face clean. Upon finding it, he slapped it over his face and held it there while Jason continued to aggressively rub in the shampoo.

“If you’re trying to crush my skull, you aren’t far off,” he muttered. To his great relief, Jason responded by withdrawing his hands. The moment he was free to move, he ducked his head beneath the water until the foam had dissolved. He came back up with a gasp, pushing water out of his face with his hands and letting the washcloth fall to the bottom of the tub.

His hair had grown over the past month and it was now just long enough to stick to his forehead. He brushed it back and frowned at Jason, who stared back at him innocently, as thought he’d done nothing wrong.

“Asshole,” he muttered. An insult to which Jason twitched, but did little else. He never liked it when Freddy called him names, though he seemed to be getting used to Freddy’s affectionate little ‘nicknames’ as time wore on.

Freddy grabbed the sides of the tub and stood, before remembering he was naked and reflexively covering his crotch with a hand. Being naked in front of another man – and a fully clothed man at that – wasn’t something he was used to, or particularly enjoyed. The exhibition made him uncomfortable. He preferred it when people were naked in front of _him_.

Thankfully, Jason didn’t need to be asked to give him a towel. He handed one over shortly after Freddy vacated the tub. Freddy hastily wrapped it around his slim waist. 

As he turned to retrieve his clothes from the floor, he felt calloused fingers glide over the mottled skin on his back. He jerked so violently he almost went slamming into the wall. Jason snapped back in apparent surprise, hand curling into a loose fist.

“Do you have _any_ concept of personal space or do you got nothing but shit for brains, Voorhees?”

The fist slowly unfurled. Jason reached for him a second time.

Freddy couldn’t believe the gall of this guy. Washing his back, touching it – it must have been a point of fascination in general.

Whatever the hell he was trying to do, Freddy wasn’t going to humour it. He ducked out of the way and picked up his trousers, pulling them on; he didn’t bother with underwear. They needed to be cleaned before he’d put them anywhere near his genitals. He’d had them on for weeks and he didn’t want anything to start growing on his junk.

As he was zipping up his slacks, Jason’s fingers brushed over his back again, over the raised flesh covering his shoulders. He had half a mind to give him a wallop to the face. The other half reminded him Jason was almost twice his size and could, judging from earlier observations of brute strength, crush his skull with one hand.

He should’ve brought a shirt. He generally didn’t wear one to avoid irritating his burns, but clearly Jason found the damaged flesh on his back a curiosity. He supposed the boy was naïve enough not to understand the implications of welts on one’s shoulders.

“I didn’t get those in the fire, if you’re wondering.” He dried his face and chest as he strode for the exit. “Assuming you’re capable of thought,” he added in a mutter.

Jason trailed behind him. He generally followed Freddy everywhere provided he wasn’t preoccupied with an errand or task. He was rather like a big, dumb doberman in that regard.

Freddy descended the stairs and stepped into the kitchen, dropping into a chair. He’d gotten used to the scent of decay by now. Not only had Jason decided to make his mother’s decapitated head a permanent resident of the house (placing her on what appeared to be a makeshift shrine), he’d brought along a woman’s corpse with it, and that one was still reasonably fresh. Generally Freddy burned his own victims within a few hours of them being killed, so there had been some adjustment necessary to be able to hold down food while the scent of rotten meat wafered throughout the house.

He heard something creaking open. When he turned, he saw Jason retrieving a bottle from the top shelf of a dusty cupboard. He returned to Freddy’s side and set the bottle down in front of him.

Freddy eagerly reached for it.

It was root beer.

“For fucks sake,” he snapped, twisting off the top. At least it was something. He was starting to tire of drinking nothing but stale water all day, every day.

While he took a swig, Jason sat down in the opposite chair and watched him. That was all he ever did. Never got himself a drink or something to eat; never obliged the usual niceties. He just sat there and watched. Freddy would never quite understand what he got out of watching someone eat and drink.

He took a swig of the root beer. Tasted like shit, overly warm and sweet. He took another swig regardless. “Next time you’re in town, raid a liquor store for me. I need _something_ to take the edge off the boredom.” He doubted the man would. He seemed averse to anything _fun_. Other than murder, of course. He had quite a penchant for that. “And some clothes,” he added as an afterthought. “Clean _underwear_ , and a sweater.”

In lieu of a verbal reply, Jason rose to his feet. Evidently he was eager to fulfil Freddy’s requests. Freddy wouldn’t stop him, though he did think it rather early to go out pilfering from the locals.

“Remember,” he called as Jason left the room. “Bourbon and clean underwear are a priority.”

He wasn’t gone long, however, before he returned with neither item Freddy had asked for. Instead he deposited a gaudy blue plaid shirt into Freddy’s lap. It wasn’t even in his size. It had to have been something Jason acquired for himself, because it had the approximate width of a baby elephant. He’d absolutely drown in it.

Freddy arched an eyebrow at him. “Anything in my size?”

Ignoring him, Jason sat back down in his chair.

Beggars couldn’t be choosers, Freddy supposed. He flung the shirt over his shoulders, pushing his hands through the arm holes. He only did up two buttons before deciding there was no point, because he could just hold the flaps together like a robe. It would have to do for the time being. The loose fabric gave little irritation to his injuries, so that was a small consolation.

* * *

Freddy tended to keep his distance from Jason’s shrine to his mother. Not because he wasn’t curious; he most certainly was, but Jason would go into a rage if he so much as stepped into its vicinity, and he’d already had to deal with an enraged Jason carrying him back to the bedroom and putting him to bed like a misbehaving child once, and frankly once had been humiliating enough. He did, however, manage to note the method of which Jason had killed the woman.

“An ice-pick through the skull, huh?” he began conversationally as he sat outside watching Jason chop wood. Winter was fast approaching and even the strongest of men, which was what Jason appeared to be, weren’t impervious to the cold.

Jason snapped the axe over a thick piece of wood, splitting it in half with incredible ease, his muscles straining beneath his shirt and jean overalls. He had yet to break a sweat despite having been at it for fifteen minutes.

“You’d probably be able to take off a head with that,” said Freddy thoughtfully. Jason placed another log upon the tree stump being used as a platform. “I have some _specific_ heads in mind.”

Axe in the air, Jason paused. He glanced over his shoulder at Freddy.

“Not right now, of course,” he continued. “Tentative start date: mid-January.” His burns still made it difficult to move fluidly. With no professional to guide the healing process, it was taking a longer than it probably should have to regain full mobility. He would need to be able to move if he wanted to enact revenge upon those who had wronged him.

Jason brought the axe down. The two halves of the log went flying into the grass.

It was hard to interpret exactly what that meant.

“I’m going to take that as a _yes_. I mean, you should be flattered. I’m not usually the sharing type.” He’d never had a partner before, nor had he ever considered looking for one. He was generally too territorial to share the spotlight, but Jason… the thought of him being there with him, participating in his revenge, was oddly satisfying.

He stood to give Jason a pat on his hulking shoulder. The speed with which Jason turned around was a little startling, and he immediately withdrew his fingers.

Jason proceeded to quite casually grab his hand, rub his knuckles in-between a thumb and forefinger, and then let it go to resume his task.

Freddy would never understand what the hell Jason was thinking half the time. Despite his reticence and odd displays, he was sure Jason had the capacity for intelligent thought. He’d certainly had it as a child; why would that have changed as an adult? He just wished Jason would convey himself in some easily understood manner instead of indecipherable gestures. Even sign language would have been preferable, and Freddy didn’t even _know_ sign language.  

Still, Jason’s inability to talk wasn’t enough to convince him to go off on his own. Jason might not have been as talkative as he liked, but Freddy recognized a valuable ally when he saw one. He didn’t even need to coerce or manipulate him into the role; Jason was clambering to protect him with all the enthusiasm of a dog protecting its master.

“See you inside, Chief,” he said.

He was bored enough to pick up a few bits of wood and bring them inside. While Jason was busy chopping, he threw a them into the fireplace and lit them with a combination of newspaper and loose pieces of bark, seeing as Jason didn’t have any kindling. His burns were numb enough nowadays that he could tolerate heat. He didn’t even need painkillers half the time.

He did have trouble maintaining a natural gait, though, which was a bitch. The damaged flesh on his limbs, particularly around his legs, made it difficult not to hobble along like a goddamn penguin. It would probably be some time before he regained full motor function in his legs.

The thunk of the axe finally stopped after a good thirty minutes of chopping. Moments later, Jason came ambling back into the house with a great bucket of firewood and set it down beside Freddy, lowering himself to Freddy’s opposite side. He extended his hands toward the flames, warming his chilled fingers.

Freddy prodded at the burning logs with the fire iron.

Prior to the burning, he’d always been fond of heat. He’d enjoyed sitting in his boiler room with that sweltering warmth encasing him from head to toe. A few times he’d even slept there, lulled asleep by the flickering flames.

Watching the flickering flames now didn’t have the same soothing effect. However, his odd dreams had awoken him earlier than usual that morning and he found himself starting to droop, his eyelids becoming heavy.

He wasn’t sure when exactly he fell asleep, but he awoke some time later to almost complete darkness, save for the gentle glow of embers in the fireplace. He realized, as he righted himself, that he’d fallen asleep nestled into Jason’s side. The man didn’t appear to have moved a muscle in all the time Freddy had been unconscious. When Freddy glanced up at him, he was surprised to find his eye closed – a very rare event indeed. He’d started to believe Jason didn’t even need to sleep.

He was slumped slightly, hulking shoulders loose and hands in his lap. Soft, muffled breaths were audible behind the sack he wore. Freddy wetted his lips as he watched Jason’s chest rise and fall. He looked more alive now than he ever did while awake.

He didn’t really give the potential repercussions a great deal of thought before reaching up to slide the sack aside and unveil Jason’s neck. To his surprise, the skin there was completely undamaged. A little pale, perhaps, but otherwise without sign of blemish. Was he _selectively_ mute, then? He would have pushed the sack up further to take a look at the state of Jason’s jaw, but the man started to move and he knew better than to let himself be caught looking beneath his mask.

Shifted by gravity, Jason slumped slowly into the cushions behind them. His chest came to rest against Freddy’s shoulder while one of his bulky arms slid into Freddy’s lap, effectively pinning him to the floor. Jason’s slumber continued uninterrupted. Any closer, and Jason’s face would have been nestled between Freddy’s neck and shoulder.

The weight of Jason’s body stifled blood circulation to his arm. Within seconds, the limb had gone numb. Flexing his fingers didn’t much help and the pressure was starting to get borderline painful.

The hand in his lap wasn’t exactly a welcome presence, either, large and meaty as it was. He could feel Jason’s nails grazing his thigh. A little uncomfortable, to say the least. He generally didn’t let people touch him like this unless it was going to lead to sex.

Stranger still, he was close enough to Jason’s chest that he could hear the steady thump of Jason’s heart. It was a reminder that Jason was not just a seemingly impenetrable bulk of muscle; he was alive and breathing, his heartbeat thrumming away behind his ribcage, his skin warm from the fire. He had to eat and drink and sleep just like a normal person, though Freddy had only seen him do one of those things thus far.

He carefully pushed against Jason’s shoulder with a palm and tried to slide out from under him. Instead of achieving this, he ended up leading Jason’s head into falling straight into his lap.

That awoke him.

Jason shot upright so fast he almost smacked Freddy in the chin.

He turned his head from side to side, visibly disorientated, before looking down at Freddy. The hand in Freddy’s lap jerked away.

“How were the dreams, Sack Head?” Freddy asked, a little disorientated himself. This wasn’t exactly a standard situation, even for someone like him.

Jason heaved himself upright, leaving the room without preamble, harried and tense. His shoulders were one long, rigid line.

Freddy laughed. A little embarrassed, was he? He would have to exploit that in the future. “No need to be shy, Jason!” he called after him.

* * *

By the end of his fourth month secluded to the Voorhees household, Freddy had read almost every book in the house. Everything from crime novels to dollar store romances, anything to keep his mind stimulated. The boredom had become almost as horrific and debilitating as his injuries, and he found himself taking down diaries and photo albums just to keep himself from going crazy.

It was in one of these photo albums that Freddy found a newspaper clipping. A small, yellowing newspaper clipping tucked away between grinning photos of Jason and his mother. There was no picture, and it was less than half a page in length. He might have thought it something to commemorate a happy memory if not for the title.

_Local boy drowns at Crystal Lake._

Perhaps not intriguing on its own, but among the photographs? He had to wonder about the relevance.

He put the photo album he’d been flicking through aside and squinted at the text, just barely able to make out the words in the dark of the living room.

_A mother was left heartbroken Wednesday afternoon as her eleven year old son drowned in the local lake while she was at work._

_According to local reports, Jason Voorhees was pushed into the lake while playing with a toy. The children were unaware that Jason could not swim, and were not being supervised at the time. Counselling is being offered to those who witnessed the drowning._

Well, that couldn’t be right. Jason had played host to Freddy for the past month, after all, and he didn’t think Jason was lying about his identity. There wasn’t much point in impersonating a deformed orphan mute.

He flicked through the photo album for any follow up clippings and found nothing.

Clearly, Jason hadn’t drowned. Perhaps he’d washed up on shore and gone wandering in search of his mother, eventually getting lost. His mother may have already moved out by the time he finally found her house… but that wouldn’t explain why he was in possession of her head. Had he pilfered it from a grave, perhaps? It wasn’t unheard of for a parent to commit suicide after the loss of a child, which frankly, was something Freddy had been banking on in the case of his former classmates.

Whatever Jason’s story was, it sounded to be an enthralling tale. A tale Jason wouldn’t be regaling him with anytime soon, given his status as a mute.

He would have tried showing Jason the clipping, but he suspected the man couldn’t read. Or at least, could only understand simple words. He seemed to understand everything Freddy said; he was very astute in that regard, but he lacked traditional intellectual skills, such as reading and writing.

He supposed there was no harm in giving it a try, though. Maybe mention a lake, and drowning, and Jason would give him some visual indication as to what it all meant.

“Jaaaaason!” he bellowed. He could faintly hear Jason chopping wood. He’d been doing that every day since the beginning of winter. “Jaaaaaaason!” he tried again, only tapering off into silence when the sound of wood being chopped abruptly stopped. Moments later, Jason stepped into the living room and deposited a few wood fragments into the log bin.

“Hey, Jason.”

Jason looked at him.

“This article-“ He lifted the article in question. “Says you drowned when you were eleven. Got pushed into the lake while playing with the… oh.” With so much information to absorb, it hadn’t occurred to him until now that Jason had fallen in while playing with _his_ boat. That explained why he’d found the boat tangled up in the pier. “Maybe I should have given you the bb gun,” he continued thoughtfully. “Could’ve shot the little shits in the eyes.”

Jason hadn’t looked away from him. He was very still. Not unusual for him, but Freddy could usually see him breathe, at the very least. His chest was unnaturally still.

He had definitely fallen into the lake, then.

“So you fell into the lake. And survived, obviously.” Freddy crossed his legs at the ankles, lounging back into the couch. “Then what? You re-enacted the jungle book?”

A heavy breath finally barrelled out of Jason and he reached for the log bin, turning his back to Freddy.

“Jason?”

Jason ignored him.

“Jaaaaaason.”

His shoulders were incredibly stiff.

Freddy sighed. “Alright, fine. I s’pose it doesn’t _really_ matter.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, though he knew Jason wouldn’t be able to see it. “That was then, this is now.”

He heard a log being thrown onto the fire. It crackled madly upon contact with the flames.

“Would be nice if you could clarify a few things, though,” said Freddy, watching Jason’s shoulder blades move beneath his overalls as he heaved additional logs into the fireplace. “Hey. Turn around. I want to teach you something that’ll make my life- _our_ lives- easier.”

Jason turned just enough to glance at him.

“Good enough,” said Freddy, shrugging. “If something is good, makes you happy, whatever, I want you to do this.” He extended a fisted hand out in front of him and gave Jason a thumbs up. “If something is bad, pissin’ you off and whatnot, do this.” He turned his thumb toward the ground. “Got it?”

Jason paused, then threw an arm into Freddy’s line of sight. His hand was fisted and a thumb stuck up in the air.

Freddy laughed. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there's sexual content in this chapter!

The heat bore down in him in heavy, oppressive waves. He could barely breath through the thickness of it. It invaded his every pore, dried up every drop of perspiration. His lungs burned in protest and his skin ached, dry and taut.

He didn’t understand what was going on. His boiler room had never been this hot before, never been this oppressive. Even on the hottest of work days, it had been tolerable, and this was anything but.

He tried to lean on a rail and yelped when it seared his forearm. He drew the damaged limb close to himself with a grimace, peeling away the sleeve of the shirt Jason had lent him. An angry red lash had risen on his skin. He pressed it hard with his fingers, trying to no avail to supress the agony.

How he’d ended up here was a mystery to him. His last recollection was of the Voorhees house and that was quite a distance from the boiler room. It didn’t look right, either; too smooth and unblemished and swathed in a gentle red light. He couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. The florescent tubes attached to the ceiling were white and appeared to be off.

The surreal quality of his surroundings made him nauseous. A little anxious, too. Two feelings he wasn’t terribly familiar with. Freddy had made a concentrated effort to purge himself of fear in his youth and instead utilize it against others, but it seemed even he was susceptible sometimes.

The soles of his shoes started to melt as he hurried down the catwalk, past hulking machinery he didn’t recognize and down a series of steps, reaching cement just in time to avoid having them burned away completely. He hunched over, hands on his knees, and inhaled as much oxygen as he could from the humid air. The heat made every step feel like a marathon. It was a miracle he hadn’t simply fainted.

Once he had regained what little breath he could, he continued walking toward the closest wall. The layout seemed unfamiliar despite Freddy having maintained and utilized this room for some years, but he was sure he could find an exit. He _needed_ to find one. There was only so long his body would be able to withstand this torrid environment, and he didn’t fancy dying with his revenge schemes unenacted, and certainly not in the way this place promised.

He was careful not to touch the wall as he followed it around the perimeter of the building. He had no desire to further harm himself, having more than enough burns for one lifetime.

This new, renovated version of his boiler room was far more labyrinthine than the one he remembered; another contribution to his growing disorientation and unease. There were too many catwalks and an overwhelming number of boilers. He never would have been able to maintain this place all on his own. Were it not for the scratches and dents scattered across the wall and the faint patches of blood he hadn’t quite managed to wash out of the cement, he would have thought this a completely different location to the one he had spent almost a decade working in. But those details couldn’t be coincidental.

A distant thudding sound caught his attention. Though it appeared to be coming from the opposite side of the building, it was clearly distinguishable over the hissing and groaning of the machinery.

Freddy abandoned the wall in favour of pursing the sound. He felt compelled to find the source.

And find it he did.

A little girl, no older than six, was skipping a rope in the middle of the boiler room. He recognized her long, blond hair and baby blue eyes. Patricia. He distinctly remembered how much of a fuss she’d made when he’d pulled her into the back of the ice-cream van, far more perceptive than her peers.

This couldn’t be real, Freddy thought to himself. It had to be a delusion, a dream. The dead didn’t come back to life.

But there Patricia was, skipping rope and humming an off-tune version of ‘one, two, buckle my shoe’ under her breath.

Freddy considered picking her up and pushing her into one of the ovens. He only decided against that because he didn’t have his glove on hand, and a wiggling, screaming kid wasn’t something he especially wanted to deal with right now.

He started to turn back the way he came, more eager than ever to leave, and suddenly found himself staring down at yet another child. This time, a little boy. He glanced to his side – a little girl joined the other in skipping rope. Second by second, the crowd of children was growing, and he recognized each and every one of them as a victim of the Springwood Slasher.

One of them had the gall to come up to him and tug at his pant leg. He kicked the child away with all the abhorrence of a man dealing with vermin.

The others started to follow the example of his friend, disregarding Freddy’s show of hostility. They groped at his pantlegs, reached for the dirty sleeves of his shirt. He tried stumbling back and succeeded only in falling over, thrashing and yelling upon the cement.

“Get off of me, you little fucks!” he screamed, but the children persisted, their little nails digging into his skin and a crescendo of giggling filling Freddy’s ears. He tried to push them, punch them, fist a hand around their little necks and squeeze the life out of them, but nothing worked. Nothing helped. They were digging into him, pulling at muscle and sinew, tearing flesh from bone.

“Come to hell with us, Freddy,” they whispered. “You promised them. They’re waiting for you.”

Entirely against his volition, Freddy screamed. He screamed and he thrashed and he squeezed his eyes shut, and it was only when two strong hands wrestled him down into a sweat-slick quilt that Freddy realized he was back at Crystal Lake. He panted hard, his heart thudding in his chest and fingers coiling into the bedsheets, still grasping for a purchase he already had. He could still feel phantoms of the little hands that had groped and invaded crawling beneath his skin.

The hands holding him down slid behind his shoulders and pulled him into a broad chest. In his frazzled state, it took him a moment to register he was being hugged.

He vaguely remembered that this wasn’t the first time he’d received a hug from Jason.

He braced his arms against Jason in an ineffective attempt to push him off. His limbs were sore from the thrashing and his hands trembled violently. His breaths came out in short pants.

That’d been a nightmare. He hadn’t had one of those in a while. Tended to be the perpetrator of nightmares, in fact, and that was how he preferred it.

A large palm slid down the slope of his spine. He inhaled sharply, stiffening in Jason’s hold, bewildered by how very enjoyable the sensation was.

“I’m not fucking ten, Sack Head,” he croaked. “I don’t need you to soothe me after a nightmare.”

Vivid though it might have been.

As he regained some semblance of control over his body, Freddy became aware of a hot pain encompassing the length of his forearm. He brought it into view. A harsh pink line stood out vivid on his pallid skin.

Freddy stared at it for a long time, unable, or perhaps unwilling to comprehend what exactly he was looking at. It was indistinguishable from the burn he’d received in his dream. When he touched it with a thumb, it even _felt_ the same.

He glanced around, searching for something, anything that would explain how he’d received the burn, but there was nothing even remotely hot enough to create such an injury in the room. Nothing except the lamp was functional, and it was still sitting innocuously on the bedside table, gathering dust. There was simply no way he could have injured himself in the same manner as he had in the dream while thrashing around his bed.

His earlier dreams fought to the forefront of his mind. The unusually vivid ones where he would wake up with the smell of metal in his nostrils and heat clinging to his skin. He remembered the hissing; the same hissing voices he had heard while in the process of burning. He’d assumed them delusions of an overwrought, dying mind, but now he had possible evidence to the contrary.

Unbeknownst to him, he’d started making odd, choking sounds, and Jason’s grip tightened.

This couldn’t be real, he told himself. It just couldn’t be real. This was the sort of bullshit people read in fantasy novels; it wasn’t meant to happen in real life, and it definitely wasn’t meant to happen to people like Freddy. He was as far from a fantasy novel protagonist as you could get.

He slowly lowered his arm back to his side, taking deep, uneven breaths, his mind swimming in turmoil. It ceased to bother him that Jason was still hugging him, still stroking his back, because there was only one thing on his mind.

_You promised them. They’re waiting for you._

His throat seized.

_Come to hell with us, Freddy._

If this was real, he didn’t think there was a single man alive who had ever been as fucked as he currently was. How did one stave off the forces of _hell_? He hadn’t even believed in the place prior to this occurring. He’d never bought into that bible thumping bullcrap he’d been subjected to in middle school. He’d been quite comfortable with the idea that his victims didn’t subsist somewhere else in the universe after he’d offed them.

His arm was starting to hurt horribly.

“Jason,” he said, only half there. “Vicodin.”

Jason released him. He reached behind Freddy, into the bedside table, and withdrew a packet of Vicodin, pausing briefly to stare down at the packet before popping three out and pushing them against Freddy’s lips. Three was far more than he needed, but he took them anyway, because the sedative effect would calm his mind. He could’ve gone for some bourbon, too, but Jason had yet to find him any (he was pretty sure the man wasn’t even looking when he went into town).

He dropped back against his pillows, wiping his shaking hands down his face. He almost forgot Jason was there until the great lummocks lowered himself to his side and pulled him into his chest, wrapping his beefy arms around Freddy’s slight shoulders.

The guy really did like cuddling, huh? Probably hadn’t had the opportunity to hold anyone since his mother, and clearly he thought Freddy was an appropriate replacement.

He was lucky Freddy was too tense and angry (and perhaps a little bit frightened) to get into a physical altercation.

And, god, he actually started to feel a little safer. Completely fucking ridiculous, but he did.

“You fucking smell,” he muttered. “I hate you.”

Jason tucked him beneath his chin, undeterred by the hostility. He was probably getting used to it.

He worked on regulating his breathing. Loretta had attended weekly yoga classes and he faintly recalled her doing breathing exercises in the lounge room. Breath in, hold it. Breathe out. That was what you were supposed to do when you were hyperventilating.

…Was he hyperventilating? He must have been, because he could barely breathe. His chest had never felt this tight before.

He forced himself to take a deep breath and held it. Counted to ten, then slowly released it. After a few minutes of regulating his breathing in this manner, he regained enough calm to abandon the breathing exercise. When the Vicodin finally kicked in, he calmed even further, and he started to consider his predicament from a more reasonable perspective.

He was getting a little ahead of himself, thinking that dreams could ever transition into reality. The body could, after all, do some incredible things while under duress. Perhaps it was just the stress. Something psychological.

He’d once read a newspaper article about a person that had spontaneously combust. In comparison, this was significantly less unusual. One burn, something his own body could have produced, didn’t suddenly mean he had to stop being agnostic.

There was, of course, one way to come to a sure conclusion about what was happening.

“Jason.” The man shifted to indicate he was listening. “If I start thrashing around, wake me up.”

Jason didn’t respond. Freddy took his lingering grip as an affirmative.

He turned his face into his pillow, and gradually the Vicodin lulled him into slumber.

Strangely enough, he could remember exactly what he had set out to do as the boiler room took form around him. He stood amidst playing children, the only adult and the only one not dressed in white. His clothes remained the gaudy plaid shirt and black slacks Jason had given him. Though he was terribly out of place, none of the children were paying him any mind, continuing their games of hopscotch and rope as though he wasn’t even there. He greatly preferred that to what they had attempted earlier.

He couldn’t deny how unusual it was for him to return to his earlier dream upon falling asleep. He’d read no textbooks on dreaming, granted, but he was sure this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Already twitchy with nerves, Freddy stepped through the throngs of children – pushing a few aside with the toe of his shoe – and approached the nearest catwalk, reaching for the railing.

He hesitated to touch it. Burns weren’t exactly pleasant to deal with, after all, and there was a very real possibility this wasn’t just a dream.

“Do it.”

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Patricia smiling up at him. Of course. The little shit had been the most vexing of all the children.

“Fuck off, kid. I’m busy.”

“Do it,” said the girl again, and he growled. Perhaps he’d throw _her_ onto the metal, see how she liked it.

“You first,” he snapped. “You have five seconds before I put your ugly little mug on the railing.” God, he hated kids. Little fucks never knew when to shut up.

The little girl grinned brightly. “Do it.”

He opened his mouth to snarl at her, but his ability to speak was wrenched from him when something grabbed his wrist and slammed the pale expanse of his forearm against the catwalk railing. He started thrashing, screaming and opened his eyes before he could get a look at his assailant. Suddenly he was in his bed with Jason’s hands on his shoulders, holding him to the mattress.

He disregarded the clear concern in Jason’s body language in favour of bringing his forearm into view.

A second burn now extended across the first.

_Fuck_.

* * *

His first day awake wasn’t unlike the days that had preceded it, easy enough to get through despite the events of the night prior. The second day was moderately harder due to compounding fatigue, but it was the third day that had him struggling not to nod off while ambling around the Voorhees household. He tried a variety of different things to keep himself awake: books, housework, cooking, jogging, and one attempt at a game of checkers with Jason, which hadn’t gone far before Jason had simply abandoned the table. None of those methods were working anymore, however; he simply didn’t have the will to do anything more complex than putting one foot in front of the other.

Inevitably, he ended up collapsing upon the closest piece of furniture – the lounge room couch – and lying there with his arms draped over his aching eyes, cursing savagely under his breath. He would have rather liked to stab someone to let off some steam, thought he doubted he had the energy even for that.

He found that he did have the energy for one thing, however: masturbation. Naturally.

He was bored, tired, and miserable, and a dose of serotonin to the brain would do him some good. Plus, it would motivate him to stay awake a little longer. At this point, as fatigued and miserable as he was, death wasn’t looking that unappealing.

He unzipped his slacks and fisted a hand around his cock, giving it slow, clumsy strokes. This act was more perfunctory than pleasurable. He lacked any of the usual enthusiasm he would have for getting off.

He closed his eyes and focused on the pleasurable sensation each stroke evoked. He would go for a slow build up. No need to rush, seeing as he had little to nothing else he could keep himself occupied with. He let his head fall back against the armrest, making no effort to stifle to obscene sounds he was making. It seemed too much effort to keep the volume of his voice at a considerate level, which was probably why Jason came stomping into the room seconds after he’d begun.

Freddy cracked open an eye, peering up at Jason.

“You can fuck off, because I ain’t stopping,” he told him, giving his cock a liberal squeeze. There wasn’t a single iota of shame in his body.

Jason’s response was to very slowly tip his head to the side. He didn’t blink. He just stared, seemingly transfixed by Freddy stimulating himself.

He had to know what masturbation was, surely. Every healthy young boy had done this at least a few dozen times a day in their youth. Jason, while deformed and mentally changed, would have had to have figured out touching his dick felt good after a certain age.

Freddy’s arousal started to wane. It was hard to get off with a voyeur in the room.

“Didn’t know you swung that way, Sack Head, but I’m really not in the mood.” He made a shooing gesture with his free hand. “Get out of here. I’m busy.”

Jason continued to stare. At this point, he wasn’t sure why he tried telling Jason to do anything. He rarely obliged him.

It was only now, with both eyes open, that Freddy noticed how hard he was breathing, and how stiff his posture was. He appeared to be grappling with something. With what, exactly, Freddy didn’t know, nor was he particularly interested in the reason behind his queer display (in more than one meaning of the word).

“What, Voorhees?” He licked his incisors, arching an eyebrow at Jason. “Don’t have a dick of your own to do this with? Didn’t think that deformity of your extended past the – whao now!”

With a startling brazenness, Jason pushed him further up the couch and seated himself behind him, reaching between his legs with one large, groping hand. Freddy half expected him to pull his cock off when he finally got a hold of it, as angry as he seemed, but he simply started stroking it in the same manner Freddy had been. A little jerkier and completely without rhythm, granted.

Freddy shuddered; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had someone else’s hand on his cock, and it felt delightful. Jason’s palm was large, encompassing, and warm. A little calloused, but that only gave his strokes a pleasant, textured quality.

Behind him, Jason’s chest heaved, pectorals straining against his blue plaid shirt, his heavy breaths warming the nape of Freddy’s neck. He swallowed and grasped at the cushions, no longer tired. The sound and smell and feel of Jason was more arousing than it had any right to be.

Jason’s opposite arm came to wrap around his chest, draped across his clavicle, holding him close while he stroked. There was no way he would last more than a minute or two, as embarrassing as that might have been. This was simply too much; he hadn’t felt this good, nor this overwrought in a very long time. 

He wondered what Jason’s teeth would feel like, what his tongue would feel like. He wondered, if he pressed back, if he could provoke a bite. He wondered a lot of odd, obscene things while he was being jerked off, fantasies propelled out of control by Jason’s shameless panting and guttural grunts. He’d never heard anything so animalistic in his life.

A slight squeeze Jason gave to the base of his cock sent him over the edge. He groaned and shivered, curled his fingers and toes, thumped his head against Jason’s shoulder, and then simply turned boneless in Jason’s arms. Any remaining energy he might’ve had was gone. He was completely spent.

The hand withdrew. Freddy had gotten cum on the couch. A dollop of translucent white that shone under the overhead light. It took him a few minutes to find the strength to zip up his trousers.

Jason’s panting didn’t cease. At the small of his back, Freddy could feel a great hardness and warmth growing. It didn’t take him long to realize Jason had quite the boner. He must’ve been incredibly well-endowed for Freddy to feel it so distinctly. He’d expected this realization to be repellent, but it wasn’t at all. He quite liked the idea of having that cock in his hand, or perhaps somewhere a little better lubricated.

After such an intense orgasm, Freddy was in a charitable enough mood to roll onto his stomach within Jason’s hold and give his crotch a lazy palm. The response was a little more visceral than he’d expected. Jason jolted violently and snapped a hand around his thin wrist, holding it inches from his encased arousal. Freddy could practically feel the heat radiating off of it.

A dull ache started to develop beneath Jason’s clutching fingers. Freddy scowled.

“Now, that ain’t fair, Sack Head,” he admonished. “I let you get me off, now let me get you off.” He never would have imagined there would be a day he chastised someone for not letting him touch their dick.

Even without facial features with which to convey emotion, Freddy could tell Jason was deeply conflicted.

“What’re you worried about?” He slowly dragged his gaze down to Jason’s crotch. “You not all present down there or something?” It certainly didn’t _feel_ like there was anything missing. “Come on. I need a distraction, and since you’re useless at anything that doesn’t require the base intelligence of a ten year old…”

Jason’s grip faltered. He took it as an opportunity to press a palm hard to his straining trousers and mould the shape of his cock around his fingers. Jason caught his wrist again, his grip weak, half-hearted. Now that he’d had a taste of what Freddy was offering, he seemed torn on what exactly to do.

Freddy cast him a fiendish grin, all teeth and gums. He applied further pressure to Jason’s arousal and was rewarded with a full-body twitch. The hand on his wrist withdrew. Victorious, he chuckled and undid the zipper on Jason’s jeans, reaching beneath the waistband of his underwear to pull out his cock. And good lord, was it big. Big, heavy, and hot, barely fitting inside his palm. Jason’s heavy breathing transitioned into low whining as he stroked its underside.

He was struck with curiosity about what it would taste like. Certainly, this wasn’t the first time he’d had a man’s cock in his hand; he’d explored that aspect of his sexuality thoroughly as a young man, but he’d never put one in his mouth. He’d preferred to receive rather than give in those instances. But he’d never encountered a cock this big before, nor a person quite like Jason, and it made him curious.

He leaned down and applied a few kitten licks to the side of Jason’s cock and squeezed at the base. The cock twitched, turning redder, harder. A hand came up to cup the back of his head and press him forward. The pleasure appeared to be making Jason bolder.

He opened his mouth wide and let Jason guide him onto his cock, breathing through his nose as it glided into the wet depths of his mouth. It tasted strongly of musk, sweat, and salt. Nothing terribly unique, but a pleasant taste all the same. His jaw was forced so wide that he could hear it creak.

A good suck prompted Jason to jerk in place, inadvertently pushing Freddy further down his shaft. Freddy swallowed around the intrusion, struggling against his gag reflex, eyes watering. Even as far down as he could go, he was only able to swallow half of Jason’s cock. The girth and length was simply too much to deepthroat.

He drew up and Jason quaked. Swivelling his tongue around the head, he lapped up a salty bead of pre-come. Freddy didn’t expect Jason to last long. This was likely the first blowjob he’d ever received, and no one lasted more than a few minutes without prior experience.

“Didn’t get _all_ the bad genes, didya,” murmured Freddy, glancing up at Jason through his lashes. He could’ve sworn he heard Jason _whimper_.

Lickings his lips, he coiled his thumb and pointer around Jason’s cock and swallowed it as far down as he could; not enough to hit the back of his throat, but enough to get it at least half way inside, and then he sucked and stoked and licked until Jason’s hips jerked and a considerable amount of hot, salty cum filled his throat. More than was natural, he thought. Jason must’ve had blue balls for years.

Coughing and swallowing, Freddy withdrew and wiped his mouth and chin clean on the sleeve of his shirt. He wasn’t likely to get that taste out of his mouth anytime soon.

He noticed Jason had broken out in sweat, his palms pale and clammy. He would’ve liked to see what his face looked like right about now.

Too content to shoo Jason from the couch, Freddy rolled onto his side and draped his arms over Jason’s hip, resting his head upon an elbow. The weariness started to return. He heaved a sigh, trying to will himself to remain awake by picking at his fingernails.

Jason panted for far longer than seemed normal or healthy. When he finally managed to regulate his breathing, he reached down to tuck himself back into his pants, hands shaking. He must have enjoyed himself, though, because he didn’t push Freddy away in disgust. In fact, he reached down and dragged a thumb over Freddy’s lips, making an odd, swallowing sound that suggested he was having a hard time resisting the urge to do something. Request another blowjob, probably.

Freddy didn’t pay him much mind. He was too tired.

Slowly, despite his best efforts, he began to drift. He didn’t think it’d be all that bad, just to relax. A quick rest to recover his strength. That was practically obligatory after sex, anyway, to bask in the afterglow and all that shit.

And then Jason pushed him to his crotch, hard once again, and that woke him right back up.

“Guess it’s going to take more than one blowjob to get rid of your stamina,” murmured Freddy, turning to mouth the head of Jason’s cock through his trousers. “Alright. One more round.”

* * *

By the fourth day, it was sheer will keeping Freddy awake. He’d nothing else to draw on. No anger, no desperation. Just the simple, base urge to _live_. Every few minutes he would start to nod off, and he would force himself back awake by standing up or scratching his burns or talking mindlessly to himself.

At one point, he invaded the medicine cabinet for anything that would keep him awake. He read the side effects on the packaging until he found one with ‘insomnia’ among the list and swallowed down as many as one was permitted to take in one hour. He washed it down with two cups of coffee and felt awful by the time noon arrived.

He wasn’t sure why he was even bothering – what was the point? What was he hoping this would achieve? Perhaps it was out of spite for whatever it was after him, or perhaps it was something else, something he didn’t want to admit to. He didn’t think about it at length. His thoughts were so muddled that he could barely string more than a few words together before forgetting the context behind them.

His entire body ached, like he’d just run a marathon. His eyelids refused to rise above the half-way point. Doing small tasks, such as lifting the kettle off the stove, took monumental effort. He couldn’t even swallow additional cups of coffee without half of it sloshing down his shirt.

Warmth billowed around him despite the relative coolness of the weather, and every so often, he would smell metal when he breathed in. Sometimes he was sure he heard children whispering his name.

He retired to the couch when night fell. He simply hadn’t the energy to continue meandering throughout the house. He needed to put his sore, aching feet up, and close his eyes for a few minutes. Just a few minutes. Just a short doze.

Jason was already sitting on the couch, occupying his usual spot, so he lay down with his head upon Jason’s stomach. A little too cuddly for his liking, usually, but a fatigued Freddy Krueger had no strong feelings on anything.

Fingers carded through his short ginger hair. He had become accustomed to Jason’s demonstrations of affection. Or maybe ‘accustomed’ wasn’t the right word; surrendered to them, perhaps. If the guy wanted to pet you, you had a hard time pushing him off. And it felt rather nice, anyway.

The fingers suddenly closed around a handful of his hair. A yelp caught in his throat and his eyes flew open, hands grasping at the couch cushions in preparation to propel himself away.

Except he wasn’t sprawled across the couch anymore. Instead of fabric, his palms connected with warm grating. Red lights splashed him from every side and he realized with dawning horror – and anger – that he had fallen asleep.

So much for ‘just a doze’.

His gaze flicked up to whoever it was tenderly stroking his hair, and incredibly, he was met with the sight of _himself_ in the getup he’d worn prior to being caught by the parents of Springwood. His eyes were darker and hair longer, dishevelled. He couldn’t recall ever looking quite so unkempt, and there was certainly something to be said about meeting a shaggier doppelganger of yourself.

The hand in his hair dropped low enough to glide over his neck, nails scratching idly at his bobbing adams apple. The stinging that followed wasn’t right, wasn’t normal. He looked down, and he saw the shimmering blades of his glove drawing red lines into his pallid skin.

“We promised you power,” said his duplicate.

An invisible force kept Freddy pinned to the grating. He ground his molars, twisting and withering, unwilling to concede.

Somewhere in the distance, smothered by shadow, children were delightedly observing the subjugation of the man that had killed them. Their giggling only served to anger him further.

“You call _this_ power?” he asked in a snarl.

“You’ll have nothing from us,” the duplicate replied. “Until we have your body.” Blood beaded beneath the point of a blade. Freddy didn’t so much as wince. “You need to die for the process to complete.” A pause. “So die.”

Like a knife through butter, the blades slid smoothly into his chest, right down to the hilt. Freddy jerked in surprise. His jaw fell slack. All at once his nerves screamed, his chest a cacophony of heat and pain as blood spilled forth and turned his torso slick. His duplicate held him close and stroked a warm palm up and down his quaking back, a parody of a loving embrace.

“You have so much potential,” the doppelganger said, placing an open-mouthed kiss upon his forehead. “Such a rotten heart.”

The boiler room transitioned into Jason’s lounge room within a blink of an eye. His first instinct was to look down, and there it was. Four long, bloody, gaping gashes extending from his chest to his navel. Jason’s tremoring hands were trying to cup up blood and push it back into him, and the futility of such a thing might have been amusing were he currently not dying.

Blood and bile crawled up his throat and spilled over his lips, dripping steadily down his chin. Dizzy and weak, there wasn’t much else he could do beyond slumping against Jason’s shoulder. There was no pain, at least; just an extreme, all-encompassing cold. Most of his extremities had turned numb.

“Jason,” he gurgled. Bloody hands touched his cheeks and jaw and eyes, cradling his head, and Freddy was made to peer up at glassy brown as the last slips of life vacated him.


	5. Finale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! I hope you guys enjoyed the ride!

Jason tried, for some time, to get Freddy to wake up. He patted his cheeks and shook his pliant body. He touched his wounds and petted his hair. He understood the concept of death, but denial told him to keep on trying, because maybe if he wanted it enough, maybe if he tried hard enough, Freddy would wake up.

He didn’t.

He remained a rag doll in Jason’s arms, empty gaze staring off into the distance, seeing nothing and comprehending nothing. The blood on his chest gradually turned glutinous and flaked off at the corners each time Jason moved him. He cradled the corpse to his chest and ripped off his sack, burying his face into Freddy’s dishevelled hair, and for the first time in a long time – perhaps since witnessing the horrific death of his mother – he wept, rocking both of them back and forth.

 _Mommy, please_ , he pleaded. He knew she was listening. He desperately needed consolation. _What do I do? What do I do?_

Her soothing voice didn’t arrive to comfort him, like it usually would. The only sound he could hear was that of his own sobbing. The room was silent, apathetic to his grief. He’d never felt more alone, not even on those early days where he’d had nothing and no one.

He couldn’t say when exactly his tears dried up, only that his grief and anger were one and the same when he finally accepted that Freddy was gone. Someone _needed_ to die. But who? He hadn’t seen the perpetrator; one minute Freddy had been sleeping, and then next he’d been bleeding and gurgling and dying.

Perhaps they would come for Jason next. When they did, he was going to _eviscerate_ them. He would bring their mangled body to Freddy as a tribute, just as he had the Alice woman to his mother.

He gingerly lifted Freddy off the couch and transferred him to his mother’s shrine. The little rotten boat was pushed aside. He replaced it with Freddy, arranging him to sit with his mother’s head in his lap.

They were the only two people in his life to have ever loved him and cared about him, and he would keep them here forever. As long as they were here, he wouldn’t be completely alone.

* * *

His life returned to what it had been prior to incorporating Freddy into it. After having a friend, even if not for long, he couldn’t help but notice how less fulfilling each day was. More of a slog than they had ever been before. The campsite was beautiful, full of exotic animals and looming trees, fresh and peaceful, but he missed Freddy’s company.

Freddy didn’t talk to him like his mother did. He remained eerily, painfully silent, and Jason would have done anything to hear one more word out of him.

He rarely took note of the passage of time beyond consciously choosing to go out at night. He didn’t know how long Freddy had been dead. Maybe a few months, maybe years. Every day felt the same when you spent each one doing the exact same thing.

Freddy’s skin became coarse and brittle, stretched taut over dry sinew. His fingers turned to bone. Jason stopped holding him for fear he would fall apart, and instead contented himself with stroking his stringy hair.

At one point the monotony was broken by a young woman stealing into his territory. There was nothing Jason’s mother hated more than _trespassers_ , and Jason shared that sentiment. When he gave chase through the forest, she kicked his weapon out of his hand and belted out of sight, going too far, and too fast for him to follow. But he memorised her face, just like he had memorised Alice’s face. If she dared come here again, he wouldn’t let her escape a second time.  

With no body to present to his mother, he returned to the Voorhees household on dragging feet. His mother wasn’t pleased. More would come, she told him, and this time he had to be ready when they arrived. He promised her he would be. He would purge the lake of every trespasser, so he, Freddy, and his mother could live in peace.

His mother had been right to tell him to prepare. More people invaded his home and he picked them off one by one, his fury at their pertinence soothed with each death. It wasn’t terribly different to his experience of hunting game in the woods. They were a little more intelligent, perhaps, but not by much. They still fell into the very same traps the local wildlife did.

What pathetic, reprehensible creatures they were.

Mother would be so pleased when he brought her their corpses. He was protecting the camp, just like she wanted. Continuing her work, and he would continue it as long as he needed to.

As he stepped into the shrine room, her gentle voice slowed his steps. So soft and warm, just like he remembered it from his childhood. There was love in every syllable.

“Kneel down,” she whispered. “Kneel down.”

He obliged, lowering himself to her feet, eager to received whatever reward she intended to give him. He wanted to feel her fingers on his scalp, her lips on his cheek. Her arms around him. He had so missed having his mother lavish affection on him.

“Such a good boy.”

He waited in rapt anticipation, scarcely breathing.

And then he saw his mother’s decapitated head sitting upon the shrine, and he remembered.

He lifted his axe just in time to avoid meeting the same fate as his mother. A surge of rage shook him out of his stupor and he lunged for the awful woman that had tried to deceive him, slicing into her meaty thigh with his axe and going in for a final strike. Before he could drive the axe into her skull, a man came at him, desperate and clumsy, and he went sprawling into a wall. It didn’t take much to get him on the ground. He was tricky, finicky; they all were, but he would always be bigger and stronger. His mother had always said he would grow into a big, strong boy one day, even while the other kids mocked him for his wiry frame and deformed head.

A hard pressure in his shoulder jarred the breath out of him. Pain registered shortly after. He had little experience with pain and it stunned him, stupefied him; wide-eyed, Jason slowly fell from his quarry and to the dusty floor of the Voorhees house, his own machete sticking out of his body.

Consciousness wavered. He was unable to move, unable to do anything, as his sack was pulled up to unveil his deformed visage. Under normal circumstances he would have twisted away, hidden himself from view, but the pain had paralysed him. He could do nothing as his quarry escaped.

The ability to move returned to him slowly. In his peripheral vision, he could see the hilt of his machete sticking out of him. Once he had the motor function to do so, he reached behind himself to grasp the hilt of the blade, extracting it with a great, messy pull that sounded uncomfortably like a rotten branch being snapped in two. Strings of blood splattered to the floorboards and he wheezed, withering in place as pain lashed at his senses.

He didn’t bother to retrieve his mask before crawling along the floorboards and over to his mother, coiling around her head with his dirtied cheek pressed to Freddy’s withered thigh. He stroked his mother’s sparse grey hair until the pain in his shoulder started to recede.

The moment he had the strength to move, he rolled onto his knees and climbed his way to his feet, using the wall as leverage. His shoulder still hurt. Not as much as it had before he’d rested beside his mother, but it still hurt.

He was covered in blood, too, and his clothes were absolutely ruined. He needed a new outfit and a new mask. The mask was especially important; he didn’t want to accidentally look at himself in a mirror.

He ambled his way out to a nearby home he had scoped out numerous times over the years. Being a consistent source of food, he had left the people living there unscathed. He’d needed them so he could feed Freddy, who didn’t seem to like eating the wild game Jason brought home. Keeping them alive had been the practical thing to do, but Jason didn’t need them anymore. Jason hadn’t needed them for some years now.

He gave them quick, merciful deaths before he took a clean set of clothes from their storage. He had some lingering gratitude for their unwitting assistance in providing food for Freddy, so he saw no need to draw out their suffering.

However, he took his time with those residing in a nearby lake house. One of them carried around a mask, which he pulled on before continuing his hunt.

He killed them one after the other, just as he had the earlier counsellors, until only one young, tenacious woman remained. He recognised her as the one who had escaped him some years prior. The second woman to have escaped him. It always seemed to be the women who caused him the most trouble. Little harlots, wicked strumpets. That was how mother used to describe them. The young ones were always the worst, the most unpure, she’d said. He was inclined to agree.

His frustration with the woman only grew as he chased her into a barn. He threw about the contents of the pens, fury expounding as he uncovered nothing but hay and muck.

He ended up following her onto the second level and – SMACK – the force of something striking him across the head very nearly dislodged his mask from his face, and for a brief moment he blacked out. When he came to, his body was weightless, falling, and he scrambled uselessly for the edge of the barn as the ground rose up to meet him. The rope around his neck snapped taut. His oesophagus was crushed in an instant, and yet he persisted, falling still for less than a minute before his body was reinvigorated with life.

The woman stepped right into his vicinity, unaware. He lifted his mask just briefly to let her identify who he was before he dropped to the ground with a heavy thump. He retrieved his machete from the floor and advanced on her, watching as she pushed herself into a wall, tried to make herself small and unreachable. It wouldn’t work. Jason’s lust for death pounded through him, unstoppable and insatiable.

A man blindsided him before he could make a swing, slamming into his side. He simply cut off his hand and knelt over him, hacking away at his head until all that remained was a mush of bone and brain matter. Perhaps he got carried away, angry as he was, because when he turned around the girl had managed to acquire an axe. The machete slipped from his fingers as she embedded it into his skull.

Pain surged through him and his vision flashed white. He groped uselessly for the girl before simply blacking out.

“Well, that was embarrassing.”

The sound of a voice compelled him to snap upright. As he did, he realised he wasn’t sitting in the barn, like he should have been. This was the lake. He was sitting in the middle of a shimmering crystal lake in a little red boat with no recollection of how he had gotten there.

The source of the boat became clear as he glanced across to the opposite side. Freddy Krueger sat with a fishing rod between his thighs, smiling toothily at him. Beyond changing into a sweater and a better fitting pair of black slacks, he didn’t appear to have changed at all since Jason had last seen him.

How Freddy had gotten here, he didn’t know, but he didn’t care either; his first instinct was to reach across and touch his hair and face and shoulders, just to make sure he was real. He was warm. Lovely and warm and _alive_. He roved a hand up and down Freddy's chest and the wounds that should have been there were absent.

“I disappear for a few years and you get yourself stabbed in the head with an axe.” Freddy clucked his tongue. “At least you’re not dead, huh? You tenacious little fuck.”

Strangely, the boat didn’t show any indication of tipping as he slid closer to Freddy, drawing the man into his arms and into his lap. He held Freddy the same way his mother had held him as a child, with him tucked under her chin. He’d always felt safe when she did that. Safe and loved, and he wanted Freddy to feel that way too.

Freddy gingerly placed his rod aside. A foot kept it secured to the floor of the boat. “I’m still gettin’ the hang of things here, but it won’t be long now.”

Jason didn’t understand what that meant.

“I like the mask, by the way,” Freddy continued, reaching into his coat pocket. He withdrew the little wooden boat from Jason’s youth, completely intact, and extended it to him. “I’ll have to think up a new nickname, won’t I.”

Jason accepted the gift with glee. It looked indistinguishable from the boat in his memories. Stroking his calloused fingers over the paintwork, he thanked Freddy with a squeeze. The man made a faint, wheezing sound and laughed; sometimes Jason forgot his own strength.

“Dumb as a hockey puck,” he muttered. Jason knew by now that Freddy’s insults were how Freddy demonstrated affection. He wasn’t bothered. 

“Stay alive until then, Jason,” continued Freddy. “I’ll need you at Springwood. There’s some heads I want rolling, remember?”

Jason nodded. He had a very good memory.

“None of my children, mind.” Freddy turned so he was kneeling between Jason’s legs. In his hands appeared a small cardboard diorama of a street, one Jason didn’t recognise. Freddy squeezed it and it got smaller and smaller, until it was small enough to fit into one palm. He then slid it into Jason’s free hand and folded Jason’s fingers over it. When Jason unfurled his fingers, the diorama was gone. 

“You’ll know the way. I’ll call for you.” Freddy reached for his mask, and he jerked back, snatching Freddy’s wrist out of the air. Freddy licked his incisors. “C’mon, hockey puck. It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, and you won’t let me give you a proper greeting? What’d you think I’m gonna do? Laugh at you?”

Jason hesitated. He was worried Freddy wouldn't like him as much if he unveiled the mangled visage beneath his mask.

“Well, I _might_ laugh, but it’ll be good natured ‘n shit.” Freddy reached with his other hand, and Jason managed to wrestle down the urge to stop him. "Trust me, there ain't nothing under there that'll bother me." Taking a deep breath, Jason kept his lips firmly shut as the mask was raised just enough to unveil his chin and mouth.

He received his first kiss when Freddy pressed their mouths chastely together. Pleasant and warm. Odd. Jason wouldn’t have minded another, but he was self-conscious enough of his appearance to pull down his mask the moment it was over.

“You’re about as stimulating as a wet blanket,” Freddy said, chuckling. He draped a wiry arm over Jason’s shoulders, pulling their chests flush together. Jason’s heart thrummed behind his breast bone. “Though you’d be more enthusiastic after being deprived of me for a few years.”

Freddy guided one of Jason's hands to the sharp jut of a hip and Jason didn’t need to be asked before he groped at the soft, pliant flesh, shivering with excitement as he rubbed his palm up the flat expanse of Freddy’s belly. Freddy breathed shallowly by his ear. 

“You do a good job,” began Freddy, arching his back to accommodate Jason’s exploring hand. He explored every inch of accessible skin. “And I’ll show you the best night of your life.” Jason wanted to be shown the night of his life _now_. With how tight his trousers were, he didn’t think he could wait.

His hand reached the small of Freddy’s back, then slid over the generous bulge of his ass. Jason swallowed hard and tugged at Freddy’s belt. 

Where exactly he intended to go from there, neither of them found out, because he opened his eyes to complete darkness before he could proceed. He was still… rather excited below the belt, which was a strange discomfort he hadn’t felt before. He didn’t know what to do with it beyond using it as motivation to do as Freddy asked and acquire his reward.

He went to push himself out through the hatch of the box he’d been put in and realised he was holding something. The little boat. In the light of the morgue, he could see it was completely unblemished.

He needed to get back to Crystal Lake and wait for Freddy’s call. He knew the way.

But first, he would deal with everyone who had the potential to get in his way.

* * *

There seemed to have been an influx of people in Jason’s absence. This was the busiest the lake had been in a very long time. Every day, he would go out, and he would find intruders. Obstinate children who should have known better; hadn’t they been told what had happened here? Why did they insist on invading his territory? He razed through them with ease, just like he had the others, until all that remained was a little boy and a young woman. He sought to kill the woman first. The little boy was harmless, innocent, even if he was among scum. He could wait.

Hand around her neck, he fought to squeeze the life out of the screaming, flailing woman. Her struggles achieved very little. Annoyed him, if anything. He could feel her neck straining, her chest quivering from the absence of oxygen. A few more squeezes and she would be done.

“Jason!” the boy called, and he turned to address them.

The bald-headed little boy that stared back at him gave him pause. His grip on the woman faltered. He rose, gaze rapt on the boy who looked so much like he had as a child, small and bald and bullied. A weak, wiry little thing. He didn’t know what to make of them, and he tilted his head slowly as he advanced on the child. He didn’t know what he would do once the child was within touching distance… perhaps he should pick him up, just to make sure he was real… maybe he would be as Jason had been when he'd escaped the lake...

But he was getting distracted. He needed to kill the woman. Wait for Freddy.

Kill the woman. Wait for Freddy.

Kill the woman. Wait for Freddy.

He finally managed to tear his gaze away from the doppelganger.

Freddy had mentioned something about children, about not wanting Jason to touch them. He wasn’t sure if the boy qualified, but he decided to leave him be as a precaution. 

Half way across the room, he turned back to his quarry. The girl had grabbed a weapon from the floor. It didn’t do her much good. He pulled it out of her hands before she could attempt a swing. Throwing it aside, he delivered a killing blow to her neck with his machete. A quick, albeit bloody death. The boy screamed so loud he wasn’t able to hear the thud as her lifeless body hit the floor.

Jason left the boy unscathed. He continued screaming well after Jason had vacated the house.

The candles surrounding his shrine had gone out when he arrived at the Voorhees household. He lit them all with a packet of matches he kept in the firewood bucket and knelt before it, waiting and listening. For a very long time, that was all he did. His knees developed a painful ache and he paid it no mind, sitting completely still while the blood on his hands dried, turned tacky, and started to flake off. He sat even as the sun began to rise, and sat when the light descended out of sight. The only time he vacated his spot was to eat and drink, as even as powerful as Jason was, and seemingly unstoppable, he needed sustenance to live.

This very long period of inactivity inevitably led to him falling asleep.

He saw the boy first, some thug in a leather jacket, drooling and twitching on the end of a makeshift noose. Evidently dead, even if minute body functions were still happening. The next thing he saw was Freddy humming away as he tied the end of the noose to the railing of a catwalk suspended high above them. He reached through the railing and adjusted the position of the body, like one would an uneven painting, and then rose to admire his work. He didn’t appear to notice Jason until Jason started up the steps to greet him. 

Freddy beamed in delight. “Hockey puck,” was offered in greeting. “There’s my boy. What’ve you been up to?”

Jason glanced down at the corpse, as though to say ‘what have _you_ been up to’.

“Curious about junior here?” asked Freddy, giving the sheet a nudge with his boot. The body swayed back and forth. “A little middle finger to the Lane’s. The Lantz’s are next.” He wrinkled his nose. “Then the Thompson’s girl. She’s been giving me trouble.”

Jason could relate.

Freddy leaned against the railing, gesturing for Jason to come closer. Jason did. “But the kids aren’t what I want you to worry about. I want you…” He extended a hand, on which sat a little clay doll with a woman’s face. A rather pretty, if weathered woman. “To deal with this broad.”

He took the clay figurine and brought it close to his face. The tiny face smiled back at him with plump red lips.

Freddy unveiled another clay figurine moments later, this time of a man. He dropped it into Jason’s open palm.

“Leave daddy, but…” He caught the woman figurine between his thumb and forefinger and placed her atop the man. “Give him his woman. The messier, the better. That fucker threw the first stone, figuratively speaking, and I’d like to see him put through the funeral of his daughter and wife.”

The dolls disappeared.

“You got that?” asked Freddy.

Jason reached down and squeezed his fingers around the handle of his machete. Kill a woman, present her mangled corpse to their lover. Nothing he hadn’t done before.

“That’a boy.” Freddy gave him an affectionate slap on the shoulder. “Remember: entrails, blood, the works.” He chuckled. “Think it’d drive him to suicide if you threw his daughter into his bed while he was sleeping? We can always try, hm?”

Just how long was Freddy expecting him to stay in Springwood? Not long, he hoped. He’d no intention of abandoning his post at Crystal Lake. His mother needed him here, to deal with interlopers.

“Not long,” answered Freddy, much to Jason’s surprise. “Deal with the woman, then you can go. And then…” He paused. “I promised you a reward, didn’t I?”

It was phrased as a question, and that was a worry, because Jason very much wanted the reward. He stepped closer and coiled an arm around Freddy’s shoulders, pressing their bodies together. He liked this, the intimacy. Since it was between two men, something his mother had never made comment on, he imagined she would approve. She’d never been as vocal about the men as she had the women.

Freddy did something odd with his hips that immediately renewed Jason’s desire to have his reward now, right now, right this moment. His breathing harshened behind his mask. He regarded Freddy with animalistic want, like a wolf preying on a rabbit (a clever rabbit, but a rabbit nonetheless).

Naturally, he didn’t so much as receive a hug before Freddy decided to yank him out of the dream. He drifted aimlessly through a variety of different outlandish scenarios before awaking with a profound hunger in his bones, almost as strong as the urge to kill. Never had he been deprived of something in this manner, and he loathed the feeling.

He would kill the Elm Street woman. He’d throw her corpse upon her husband, just like Freddy asked.

And then Freddy would _have_ to let him satiate his hunger.

He retrieved his machete from the floor and began his hunt.

* * *

At a steady walk, with the occasional stop to orientate himself, Jason reached Springwood within a day. Not long after, he arrived at Elm Street, shielded from view by the dark of night. There were police vehicles across the street from the property Freddy had identified in his dream, their lights splashing surrounding buildings with red and blue. He only spared them a glance before venturing forth, heading for the back yard of the tall, suburban house in which his target resided.

He broke the glass and reached inside to open the back door, then made his way on silent feet to the second floor of the house. The bedrooms were always upstairs.

He was soon met with the sight of a girl sleeping soundly in her bed, and in a room further down the hall, he found a woman – the woman he was after – curled up on her side in satin pyjamas, her dirty blonde hair spread around her head like a halo. It was a peaceful scene, and one that Jason had no qualms with disturbing.

He crept deeper into the room and came to stand over her, his bulky shadow spread across her slumbering form. Freddy had requested ‘messy’. He could do messy.

Wrapping a hand around her throat, jostling her awake, he proceeded to slam the blade of his machete between her heaving breasts and drag down, splitting her down the middle like a pig in an abattoir. She squealed like one too, her mouth falling open as her body jerked in place. A quick stab to the temple would end her completely. Jason didn’t have the patience to wait for her to bleed out.

He slid his machete free of her quivering body and raised it high above his head. A heavy thud from downstairs prompted him to stop.

He looked over his shoulder at the door. No one stepped through. Machete still held high in the air, Jason abandoned the bed to investigate the sound. She would die shortly from her wounds and corpses couldn’t make escape attempts.

He nudged the bedroom door open with the toe of his boot, peering down the hallway for signs of life. The girl from earlier was bent over a windowsill, screaming for help. ‘Daddy, daddy, please help me, daddy!’. Jason took one step toward her before remembering that Freddy had instructed him to only kill the lady. He didn’t want to defy Freddy’s instructions, as tempting as it was to severe the girls head from her body. He wanted Freddy’s reward.

She descended the steps and disappeared out of sight, and Jason heard a great thud as someone entered from the girl’s bedroom. A very pained yelp barrelled out of them as a hammer dislodged from the ceiling and presumably struck them in the stomach.

Jason approached the door with the intention of dispatching them, because surely, Freddy wouldn’t mind him getting rid of whomever it was pursuing Freddy’s quarry, but he fell still when it was Freddy himself that came stumbling into the hall, groaning and clutching his gut. He proceeded to fall over the banister. Jason just barely managed grab hold of one of his skinny ankles before he impacted with the floor.

“What the fuck-!” Upon seeing who was holding him, Freddy mouth split into a too-wide grin and he cackled. It sounded strange and otherworldly outside the realm of dreams. “Right on time!” he bellowed gleefully. “Well, could’ve been a little earlier, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.” Freddy gestured wildly with his hands, swinging like a pendulum in Jason’s grasp. “Pull me up! The little bitch is getting away!”

With one great heave, Freddy was back on his feet. He hurried down the stairs while flailing his arms wildly, presumably in indication that he wanted Jason to follow.

The girl hopped over the couch at the sight of them, seeking refuge from her assailants. Her gaze lingered on Jason, full of confusion. A second monster clearly wasn’t something she had planned for. Jason went to advance, to grab her for Freddy, and felt something snag on his ankle. A great blast sent him colliding into Freddy and both of them laded on the floor in a heap. The girl practically had to leap over them in her efforts to reach the basement. Jason, not quite as winded as Freddy, managed to grab her by the ankle before she could escape.

“Got you,” Freddy snarled, wiggling out from under Jason to swipe at the girl. His blades sunk into her belly and she screamed, twisting in Jason’s grasp, kicking her legs and grappling at the floorboards with her nails. His grip didn’t budge an inch. She was a great deal less physically adept than the other women he’d contended with.

Growling under his breath, Freddy threw her to the ground and straddled her, stabbing her repeatedly, going up and down her body until there wasn’t a single inch of her not covered in blood. The screaming and withering tapered off after he reached her throat. Long after she had fallen unconscious, becoming as pliant as a doll, he continued puncturing her vulnerable flesh.

He was panting by the time he’d finished. Saliva had turned his bottom lip shiny, illuminated by the moonlight sneaking in from lounge room window. His teeth were bared. There was something animalistic in the way Freddy held himself, and Jason liked what he saw.

Rising from her body, Freddy wiped his bloody glove on his shirt.

“Did you kill the broad?” he asked.

Jason brought his bloody machete into the light.

“Good.” He wiped his sweaty brow, smearing blood across his forehead. “We gotta go. Police are comin’, and I don’t fancy taking any bullets.”

Jason reached for Freddy’s hand. Freddy didn’t complain when he grabbed it.

“Still believe in the buddy system, do you?” Freddy stepped over the corpse of the girl, rising to the toes of his feet to plant a sloppy kiss on Jason’s mask. “Next stop: Crystal Lake,” he said, and winked in promise.

Freddy’s legs were a great deal shorter than Jason’s. He would be slow, and slow would get them caught. Though he knew Freddy wouldn’t like it, Jason bundled him up in his arms and proceeded to carry him out the house and down the street. Freddy struggled and cursed and hit his shoulders, but Jason didn’t let go, and it wasn’t long before Freddy simply submitted to Jason’s will.

* * *

They were sweaty, dirty, covered in dried blood, and yet the first thing Jason did upon reaching their destination was deposit Freddy onto his bed and clamber on top of him, pulling clumsily at his belt. Freddy accommodated this by lifting his hips.

“Virgin’s a little eager, I see,” murmured Freddy. Jason didn’t see why that would be a surprise, virgin or not. He’d thought quite regularly about the pleasure one could reap from intimacy since the day Freddy had introduced him to it. Certainly, he’d touched himself when he was younger, just to relieve those dirty base urges, but it was a different experience entirely with another person. It was perfectly reasonable to want more of the wonderful thing Freddy had introduced him to.

He didn’t know what to do first: claim his mouth or use his hand. Touch him or jerk him off. There were so many options and Jason didn’t have the experience to know which one to start with. He divested Freddy of his trousers and underwear and squeezed at his thighs, at a loss for what else to do.

Freddy snorted. “You’ll need these off,” he instructed, unzipping Jason’s overalls and yanking them down over his hips. Jason hunched over him at the suddenness with which he reached inside and grabbed his cock. It was throbbing and sensitive, already painfully hard. His mouth went dry as Freddy dragged a thumb over a protruding vein.

Jason knew the basics of intercourse. One couldn’t maintain ignorance on the topic when their most common quarry was horny teens. He’d seen how they did it, how disgusting and dirty it was. This however, looked and felt like neither of those things. This was good. This was nice.

He pried Freddy’s thighs apart and ground against him, the head of his cock nudging a slick, warm hole. It seemed a little small for his purposes, but if a woman could accommodate a cock, he was sure Freddy could. Freddy was much larger than any woman, after all.

As he positioned himself at Freddy’s entrance, Freddy grasped at his shoulders.

“Wh- oh, slow down, you need to- fuck!” Freddy arched straight off the bed as he plunged into that slick heat, right down to the hilt. He didn’t meet any resistance. Freddy stretched around his girth with no trouble at all, like he was made just for Jason.

The sensation was incredible, better than anything Jason had ever felt before, better than the thrill of the hunt or the satisfaction of a kill. He drew back and thrust in again, shivering from the intensity of the pleasure. He couldn’t understand why his mother had ever had anything bad to say about something so wonderful.

Freddy’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the bed sheets. He groaned and withered beneath Jason while his body struggled to adjust to the intrusion, head buried in the pillows, eyes squeezed shut and eyelashes dark on pale skin. He looked… he looked _good_. Jason wasn’t usually the sort of person that concerned himself with physical appearance; his mother had taught him that ones personality was what mattered most, but Jason liked the dusting of pink on Freddy’s cheeks and his messy ginger hair and the way his chest heaved every time he inhaled. He liked the burns scattered across his body and the sparse hairs surrounding his hard cock. He was pretty, like the stained-glass windows Jason had seen in the illustrated bible his mother had given him as a child.

“J-Jesus fuck,” Freddy stammered. “I was gonna say lubrication, you _asshole_.”

Jason didn’t know why they would need lubrication. Everything about this was already perfect.

He caught Freddy’s hips in a bruising grasp and pulled him down into his next thrust, enjoying the way he gasped and shook. Whatever Jason was doing, it must have started to feel good, because the sounds he made now were much softer and guttural than the sounds he’d initially made. He murmured something under his breath, something like ‘please’ or ‘god’ or a combination of the two during the next thrust and threw a forearm over his face when Jason responded by making his thrusts gentler and more focused. He liked the sounds Freddy was making now much more than the ones he’d made before.

His rhythm was non-existent, but Freddy seemed to be enjoying himself all the same. Eventually Freddy started to stroke his own cock, and Jason lamented the fact he hadn’t thought to do that first.

Jason’s breathing gradually turned deep and laboured. An overwhelming heat coursed through him, pleasurable in its intensity. He started to lose focus and thrust at random angles and with varying speeds, and occasionally, entirely by accident he would hit something that would draw a cry from Freddy’s throat. His heart thudded so hard he felt as though it would burst out of his chest. He couldn’t stop shaking. It was an altogether frightening and wonderful experience.

The best was yet to come, because it was seconds later than he reached climax, thighs clenching and shaking, teeth gritted behind his mask. It was simply the single most amazing feeling he’d ever experienced. He sunk to Freddy’s body upon fishing, lying atop of him, completely spent. His cock remained buried in Freddy while Freddy finished stroking himself to completion.

By the end, both of them were horrendously sweaty and exhausted, struggling to catch their breath.

“You’re fucking heavy,” Freddy mumbled, eyes closed as he rolled onto his side beneath Jason. Jason adjusted himself so he was curled around Freddy’s slighter body.

He could probably go another round, truth be told, but he decided to permit Freddy a few hours of rest. Now that they were together again, they had all the time in the world to explore that aspect of their relationship.

Relationship… not something Jason had ever imagined he would have.

The afterglow of sex eventually lulled Freddy to sleep, and though he had been awake for well over twenty four hours, Jason didn't join him. He watched Freddy slumber. He liked the way Freddy looked when he slept, his cheeks pink and his chest rising and falling with each breath. He was disarmed in a way he rarely was when awake. Jason was careful not to jostle Freddy awake as he stroked his fingers through Freddy's hair, smoothing it back over his scalp.

It was some hours before Freddy stirred, yawning and starting to rise onto his elbows. Jason hadn't slept a wink. Before Freddy could get far, Jason pulled him back down to the mattress and spread a hand flat on his chest, pressing their bodies flush together. 

He didn't want Freddy to go. He was struck with the thought that Freddy would disappear if he left the room, just like he had last time, and it terrified him more than anything. He didn't want to risk losing Freddy again. His absence had been a lonely period, even with his mother there to keep him company, and loneliness was a horrible, gnawing, debilitating thing once you’d had a taste of companionship. He didn't think he could cope with it a second time.

Freddy sighed and ran the pads of his fingers over Jason’s knuckles.

“’M not going anywhere,” he mumbled, but Jason couldn’t be sure that was true. He tightened his grip, afraid Freddy would slip away at the first available opportunity.

“Really,” he continued. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise. Well, not _yet_ , anyhow.”

Jason lifted his mask just enough to unveil his mouth, clamping his teeth over the junction between Freddy’s neck and shoulder. It was as close to saying _mine_ as he could get.

Freddy inhaled sharply. “Y’gonna get me hard again. Fuck.”

Jason glanced down, and he could see Freddy’s toes curling. He was enjoying this more then Jason had anticipated.

“Look, I’ll always come back, I promise.” Jason bit a little harder, and Freddy groaned. “I proooomise,” he whined. 

Reaching between Freddy’s legs, he found the man already hard.  He stroked him idly, savouring in the soft, breathy sounds he made and the taste of Freddy’s skin on his tongue. He could have done this forever. Just lay there in bed with his cock buried in Freddy and stroked him to completion over and over. He couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of something this wonderful.

“I’ll always come back,” Freddy murmured, his voice rendered soft and tremoring by Jason’s hand. "I'll always come back," he said again, pressing their bodies as close together as humanly possible, thigh to thigh and chest to back. This time, Jason believed him.


End file.
